THEODORE  DREISER 

WITH  ILLVSTRATIONS 
BY  FRANKLIN  BOOTH- 


A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 


BY  THEODORE  DREISER 

THE  "GENIUS" 
SISTER  CARRIE 
JENNIE  GERHARDT 
A  TRAVELER   AT  FORTY 

PLAYS  OF  THE  NATURAL  AND 
THE  SUPERNATURAL 

THE  FINANCIER] 

THE  TITAN  [  A  TRILOGY  OF  DESIRE, 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  * 


THE    WARSAW    HOME 

The  Mecca  of  this  trip 

Frontispiece 


AHGDSIER 
HOLIDAY 

BY" 

THEODORE  DREISER 

WITH  ILLVSTRATIONS 
BY  FRANKLIN  BOOTH- 


NEWYORK:  JOHNLANE  COMPANY 

LONDON:  JOHN  LANE 
THE  BODLEYHEAD 

MCMXVI 


J1 


COPYRIGHT,  1916,  BY 
JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 


Press  ol 

J.  J.  Little  &  Ives  Company 
New  York,  U.S.A. 


TO 
MY  MOTHER 


372249 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE  ROSE  WINDOW 13 

II.  THE  SCENIC  ROUTE 20 

III.  ACROSS  THE  MEADOWS  TO  THE  PASSAIC       .  24 

IV.  THE  PIETY  AND  EGGS  OF  PATERSON       .     .  29 
V.  ACROSS  THE  DELAWARE 35 

VI.  AN  AMERICAN  SUMMER  RESORT  ....  42 

VII.  THE  PENNSYLVANIANS 50 

VIII.  BEAUTIFUL  WILKES-BARRE 58 

IX.  IN  AND  OUT  OF  SCRANTON 65 

X.  A  LITTLE  AMERICAN  TOWN 75 

~XI.  THE  MAGIC  OF  THE  ROAD  AND  SOME  TALES  .  81 

XII.  RAILROADS  AND  A  NEW  WONDER  OF  THE 

WORLD 92 

XIII.  A  COUNTRY  HOTEL 98 

XIV.  THE  CITY  OF  SWAMP  ROOT 107 

XV.  A  RIDE  BY  NIGHT 116 

XVI.  CHEMUNG 123 

XVII.  CHICKEN  AND  WAFFLES  AND  THE  TOON 

O'  BATH 131 

XVIII.  MR.   HUBBARD  AND  AN  AUTOMOBILE  FLIR 
TATION         141 

XIX.  THE  REV.  J.  CADDEN  McMiCKENS  .     .     .  150 

XX.  THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  FRA 159 

XXI.  BUFFALO  OLD  AND  NEW 169 

XXII.  ALONG  THE  ERIE  SHORE 176 

XXIII.  THE  APPROACH  TO  ERIE 182 

XXIV.  THE  WRECKAGE  OF  A  STORM 190 

XXV.  CONNEAUT 197 

XXVI.  THE  GAY  LIFE  OF  THE  LAKE  SHORE       .     .  204 

XXVII.  A  SUMMER  STORM  AND  SOME  COMMENTS  ON 

THE  PICTURE  POSTCARD 214 


CONTENTS 


X5 

j KX; 


IN  CLEVELAND 221 

THE  FLAT  LANDS  OF  OHIO 229 

OSTEND  PURGED  OF  SIN 234 

WHEN  HOPE  HOPPED  HIGH 244 

THE  FRONTIER  OF  INDIANA 256 

ACROSS  THE  BORDER  OF  BOYLAND     .     .     .  264 

A  MIDDLE  WESTERN  CROWD 273 

WARSAW  AT  LAST 283 

WARSAW  IN  1884-6 290 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXVIII. 
XXIX. 
XXX. 
XXXI. 

:xn. 

XXXIII. 

xxxiv. 

XXXV. 
-XXXVI. 

XXXVII.  THE  OLD  HOUSE 298 

XXXVIII.  DAY  DREAMS .  305 

XXXIX.  THE  Kiss  OF  FAIR  GUSTA 309 

— XL.  OLD  HAUNTS  AND  OLD  DREAMS    .      .     .     .  317 

XLI.  BILL  ARNOLD  AND  His  BROOD      .     .     .     .327 

XLII.  IN  THE  CHAUTAUQUA  BELT 335 

XLIII.  THE  MYSTERY  OF  COINCIDENCE  ....  346 

XLIV.  THE  FOLKS  AT  CARMEL 357 

-~*-XLV.  AN  INDIANA  VILLAGE 370 

XLVI.  A  SENTIMENTAL  INTERLUDE 379 

XLVII.  INDIANAPOLIS  AND  A  GLYMPSE  OF  FAIRY 
LAND    385 

-~*XLVIII.  THE  SPIRIT  OF  TERRE  HAUTE      ....  396 

XLIX.  TERRE  HAUTE  AFTER  THIRTY-SEVEN  YEARS  401 

L.  A  LUSH,  EGYPTIAN  LAND 409 

LI.  ANOTHER  "OLD  HOME" 419 

-^LII.  HAIL,  INDIANA! 428 

LIII.  FISHING  IN  THE  BUSSERON  AND  A  COUNTY 

FAIR 434 

LIV.  THE  FERRY  AT  DECKER 440 

LV.  A  MINSTREL  BROTHER 448 

LVI.  EVANSVILLE 454 

'••""LVI  I.  THE  BACKWOODS  OF  INDIANA       ....  465 

LVI II.  FRENCH  LICK 475 

LIX.  A  COLLEGE  TOWN        486 

-»«~-LX.  "BOOSTER  DAY"  AND  A  MEMORY      ...  496 

~— LXL  THE  END  OF  THE  JOURNEY 505 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  Warsaw  Home Frontispiece 


FACING 
PAGE 


The  Old  Essex  and  Morris  Canal 38 

Wilkes-Barre 58 

A  Coal  Breaker  Near  Scranton 62 

Franklin  Studies  an  Obliterated  Sign 70 

Factoryville  Bids  Us  Farewell 88 

The  Great  Bridge  at  Nicholsen          94 

Florence  and  the  Arno,  at  Owego no 

Beyond  Elmira 132 

Franklin  Dreams  Over  a  River  Beyond  Savona     .      .      .  136 

The  "Toon  O'  Bath" 140 

Egypt  at  Buffalo 178 

Pleasure  before  Business 186 

Conneaut,  Ohio 200 

The  Bridge  That  Is  to  Make  Franklin  Famous      .      .      .  218 

Where  I  Learn  That  I  Am  Not  to  Live  Eighty  Years      .  222 

Cedar  Point,  Lake  Erie 238 

Hicksville 268 

With  the  Old  Settlers  at  Columbia  City,  Indiana        .      .  276 

Central  Indiana 330 

In  Carmel          362 

The  Best  of  Indianapolis 382 

The  Standard  Bridge  of  Fifty  Years  Ago 390 

Franklin's  Impression  of  My  Birthplace 398 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGE 


Terre  Haute  from  West  of  the  Wabash 404 

My  Father's  Mill 422 

Vincennes 432 

The  Ferry  at  Decker         444 

The  Ohio  at  Evansville 458 

A  Beautiful  Tree  on  a  Vile  Road 468 

A  Cathedral  of  Trees         472 

French  Lick 478 


A   HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 


CHAPTER  I 

THE   ROSE   WINDOW 

• 

IT  was  at  a  modest  evening  reception  I  happened  to  be 
giving  to  a  new  poet  of  renown  that  the  idea  of  the  holi 
day  was  first  conceived.  I  had  not  seen  Franklin,  sub 
sequent  companion  of  this  pilgrimage,  in  all  of  eight  or 
nine  months,  his  work  calling  him  in  one  direction,  mine 
in  another.  He  is  an  illustrator  of  repute,  a  master  of 
pen  and  ink,  what  you  would  call  a  really  successful  artist. 
He  has  a  studio  in  New  York,  another  in  Indiana — his 
home  town — a  car,  a  chauffeur,  and  so  on. 

I  first  met  Franklin  ten  years  before,  when  he  was 
fresh  from  Indiana  and  working  on  the  Sunday  supple 
ment  of  a  now  defunct  New  York  paper.  I  was  doing 
the  same.  I  was  drawn  to  him  then  because  he  had  such 
an  air  of  unsophisticated  and  genial  simplicity  while  look 
ing  so  much  the  artist.  I  liked  his  long,  strong  aquiline 
nose,  and  his  hair  of  a  fine  black  and  silver,  though  he 
was  then  only  twenty-seven  or  eight.  It  is  now  white — 
a  soft,  artistic  shock  of  it,  glistening  white.  Franklin 
is  a  Christian  Scientist,  or  dreamy  metaphysician,  a  fact 
which  may  not  commend  him  in  the  eyes  of  many,  though 
one  would  do  better  to  await  a  full  metaphysical  inter 
pretation  of  his  belief.  It  would  do  almost  as  well  to  call 
him  a  Buddhist  or  a  follower  of  the  Bhagavad  Gita. 
He  has  no  hard  and  fast  Christian  dogmas  in  mind.  In 
fact,  he  is  not  a  Christian  at  all,  in  the  accepted  sense, 
but  a  genial,  liberal,  platonic  metaphysician.  I  know  of 
no  better  way  to  describe  him.  Socalled  sin,  as  some 
thing  wherewith  to  reproach  one,  does  not  exist  for  him. 
He  has  few  complaints  to  make  concerning  people's  weak- 

13 


14  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

nesses  or  errors.  Nearly  everything  is  well.  He  lives 
happily  along,  sketching  landscapes  and  trees  and  draw 
ing  many  fine  simplicities  and  perfections.  There  is  about 
him  a  soothing  repose  which  is  not  religious  but  human, 
which  I  felt,  during  all  the  two  thousand  miles  we  sub 
sequently  idled  together.  Franklin  is  also  a  very  liberal 
liver,  one  who  does  not  believe  in  stinting  himself  of  the 
good  things  of  the  world  as  he  goes — a  very  excellent 
conclusion,  I  take  it. 

At  the  beginning  of  this  particular  evening  nothing 
was  farther  from  my  mind  than  the  idea  of  going  back 
to  Indiana.  Twentyeight  years  before,  at  the  age  of 
sixteen,  I  had  left  Warsaw,  the  last  place  in  the  state 
where  I  had  resided.  I  had  not  been  in  the  town  of  my 
birth,  Terre  Haute,  Indiana,  since  I  was  seven.  I  had 
not  returned  since  I  was  twelve  to  Sullivan  or  Evansville 
on  the  Ohio  River,  each  of  which  towns  had  been  my 
home  for  two  years.  The  State  University  of  Indiana 
at  Bloomington,  in  the  south  central  portion  of  the  state, 
which  had  known  me  for  one  year  when  I  was  eighteen, 
had  been  free  of  my  presence  for  twentysix  years. 

And  in  that  time  what  illusions  had  I  not  built  up  in 
connection  with  my  native  state !  Who  does  not  allow 
fancy  to  color  his  primary  experiences  in  the  world? 
Terre  Haute!  A  small  city  in  which,  during  my  first 
seven  years,  we  lived  in  four  houses.  Sullivan,  where 
we  had  lived  from  my  seventh  to  my  tenth  year,  in  one 
house,  a  picturesque  white  frame  on  the  edge  of  the 
town.  In  Evansville,  at  1413  East  Franklin  Street,  in 
a  small  brick,  we  had  lived  one  year,  and  in  Warsaw, 
in  the  northern  part  of  the  state,  in  a  comparatively  large 
brick  house  set  in  a  grove  of  pines,  we  had  spent  four 
years.  My  mother's  relatives  were  all  residents  of  this 
northern  section.  There  had  been  three  months,  be 
tween  the  time  we  left  Evansville  and  the  time  we  settled 
in  Warsaw,  Kosciusko  County,  which  we  spent  in  Chicago 
— my  mother  and  nearly  all  of  the  children;  also  six 
weeks,  between  the  time  we  left  Terre  Haute  and  the 


THE  ROSE  WINDOW  15 

time  we  settled  in  Sullivan,  which  we  spent  in  Vincennes, 
Indiana,  visiting  a  kindly  friend. 

We  were  very  poor  in  those  days.  My  father  had 
only  comparatively  recently  suffered  severe  reverses,  from 
which  he  really  never  recovered.  My  mother,  a  dreamy, 
poetic,  impractical  soul,  was  serving  to  the  best  of  her 
ability  as  the  captain  of  the  family  ship.  Most  of  the  ten 
children  had  achieved  comparative  maturity  and  nad 
departed,  or  were  preparing  to  depart,  to  shift  for  them 
selves.  Before  us — us  little  ones — were  all  our  lives. 
At  home,  in  a  kind  of  intimacy  which  did  not  seem  to 
concern  the  others  because  we  were  the  youngest,  were 
my  brother  Ed,  two  years  younger  than  myself;  my  sis 
ter  Claire  (or  Tillie),  two  years  older,  and  occasionally 
my  brother  Albert,  two  years  older  than  Claire,  or  my 
sister  Sylvia,  four  years  older,  alternating  as  it  were 
in  the  family  home  life.  At  other  times  they  were  out 
in  the  world  working.  Sometimes  there  appeared  on 
the  scene,  usually  one  at  a  time,  my  elder  brothers, 
Mark  and  Paul,  and  my  elder  sisters,  Emma,  Theresa, 
and  Mary,  each  named  in  the  order  of  their  ascending 
ages.  As  I  have  said,  there  were  ten  all  told — a  rest 
less,  determined,  halfeducated  family  who,  had  each 
been  properly  trained  according  to  his  or  her  capacities, 
I  have  always  thought  might  have  made  a  considerable 
stir  in  the  world.  As  it  was — but  I  will  try  not  to 
become  too  technical. 

But  in  regard  to  all  this  and  the  material  and  spirit 
ual  character  of  our  life  at  that  time,  and  what  I  had 
done  and  said,  and  what  others  had  done  and  said,  what 
notions  had  not  arisen !  They  were  highly  colored  ones, 
which  might  or  might  not  have  some  relationship  to  the 
character  of  the  country  out  there  as  I  had  known  it.  I 
did  not  know.  Anyhow,  it  had  been  one  of  my  dearly 
cherished  ideas  that  some  day,  when  I  had  the  time  and 
the  money  to  spare,  I  was  going  to  pay  a  return  visit 
to  Indiana.  My  father  had  once  owned  a  woolen  mill 
at  Sullivan,  still  standing,  I  understood  (or  its  duplicate 
built  after  a  fire),  and  he  also  had  managed  another 


1 6  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

at  Terre  Haute.  I  had  a  vague  recollection  of  seeing 
him  at  work  in  this  one  at  Terre  Haute,  and  of  being 
shown  about,  having  a  spinning  jenny  and  a  carder  and 

Tmni  11    m     i    uiiifcinwn.i  i«|fl    fa     •ilfii    ••mi      i|M        •- •»• 

a  weaver  explained  to  me.  I  had  tishgd  in  the  Busseron 
near  Sullivan,  nearly  lost  my  life  in  the  Ohio  at  Evans- 
ville  in  the  dead  of  winter,  fallen  in  love  with  the  first 
girls  I  ever  loved  at  Warsaw.  The  first  girl  who  ever 
kissed  me  and  the  first  girl  I  ever  ventured  to  kiss  were 
at  Warsaw.  Would  not  that  cast  a  celestial  light  over 
any  midwestern  village,  however  homely? 

Well,  be  that  as  it  may,  I  had  this  illusion.  Someday 
I  was  going  back,  only  in  my  plans  I  saw  myself  taking 
a  train  and  loafing  around  in  each  village  and  hamlet 
hours  or  days,  or  weeks  if  necessary.  At  Warsaw  I 
would  try  to  find  out  about  all  the  people  I  had  ever 
known,  particularly  the  boys  and  girls  who  went  to 
school  with  me.  At  Terre  Haute  I  would  look  up  the 
house  where  I  was  born  and  our  old  house  in  Seventh 
Street,  somewhere  near  a  lumber  yard  and  some  railroad 
tracks,  where,  in  a  cool,  roomy,  musty  cellar,  I  had  swung 
in  a  swing  hung  from  one  of  the  rafters.  Also  in  this 
lumber  yard  and  among  these  tracks  where  the  cars 
were,  I  had  played  with  Al  and  Ed  and  other  boys.  Also 
in  Thirteenth  Street,  Terre  Haute,  somewhere  there  was 
a  small  house  (those  were  the  darkest  days  of  our  pov 
erty),  where  I  had  been  sick  with  the  measles.  My 
father  was  an  ardent  Catholic.  For  the  first  fifteen  years 
of  my  life  I  was  horrified  by  the  grim  spiritual  punish 
ments  enunciated  by  that  faith.  In  this  house  in  Thir 
teenth  Street  I  had  been  visited  by  a  long,  lank  priest 
in  black,  who  held  a  silver  crucifix  to  my  lips  to  be  kissed. 
That  little  house  remains  the  apotheosis  of  earthly  gloom 
to  me  even  now. 

At  Sullivan  I  intended  to  go  out  to  the  Easier  House, 
where  we  lived,  several  blocks  from  the  local  or  old 
Evansville  and  Terre  Haute  depot.  This  house,  as  I  re 
called,  was  a  charming  thing  of  six  or  seven  rooms  with 
a  large  lawn,  in  which  roses  flourished,  and  with  a  truck 
garden  north  of  it  and  a  wonderful  clover  field  to  the 


THE  ROSE  WINDOW  17 

rear  (or  east)  of  it.  This  clover  field — how  shall  I 
describe  it? — but  I  can't.  It  wasn't  a  clover  field  at  all 
as  I  had  come  to  think  of  it,  but  a  honey  trove  in  Arcady. 
An  army  of  humble  bees  came  here  to  gather  honey.  In 
those  early  dawns  of  spring,  summer  and  autumn,  when, 
for  some  reason  not  clear  to  me  now,  I  was  given  to 
rising  at  dawn,  it  was  canopied  by  a  wonderful  veil  of 
clouds  (tinted  cirrus  and  nimbus  effects),  which  seemed, 
as  I  looked  at  them,  too  wonderful  for  words.  Across 
the  fields  was  a  grove  of  maples  concealing  a  sugar  camp 
(not  ours),  where  I  would  go  in  the  early  dawn  to  bring 
home  a  bucket  of  maple  sap.  And  directly  to  the  north 
of  us  was  a  large,  bare  Gethsemane  of  a  field,  in  the 
weedy  hollows  of  which  were  endless  whitening  bones, 
for  here  stood  a  small  village  slaughter  house,  the  sacri 
ficial  altar  of  one  local  butcher.  It  was  not  so  gruesome 
as  it  sounds — only  dramatic. 

JSut  this  field  and  the  atmosphere  of  that  home!  I 
shall  have  to  tell  you  about  them  or  the  import  of  re 
turning  there  will  be  as  nothing.  It  was  between  my 
seventh  and  my  tenth  year  that  we  lived  there,  among 
the  most  impressionable  of  all  my  youth.  We  were  very 
hard  pressed,  as  I  understood  it  later,  but  I  was  too 
young  and  too  dreamy  to  feel  the  pinch  of  poverty. 
This  lower  Wabash  valley  is  an  Egyptian  realm — not 
very  cold  in  winter^  and  drowsy  with  heat  in  summer. 
Corn  and  wheat  and  hay  and  melons  grow  here  in  heavy, 
plethoric  fashion.  Rains  come  infrequently,  then  only  in 
deluging  storms.  The  spring  comes  early,  the  autumn 
lingers  until  quite  New  Year's  time.  In  the  beech  and 
ash  and  hickory  groves  are  many  turtle  doves.  Great 
hawks  and  buzzards  and  eagles  soar  high  in  the  air. 
House  and  barn  martins  circle  in  covies.  The  bluejay 
and  scarlet  tanager  flash  and  cry.  In  the  eaves  of  our 
cottage  were  bluebirds  and  wrens,  and  to  our  trumpet 
vines  and  purple  clematis  came  wondrous  humming  birds 
to  poise  and  glitter,  tropic  in  their  radiance.  In  old 
Kirkwood's  orchard,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away  over  the 


i8  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

clover  field,  I  can  still  hear  the  guinea  fowls  and  the  pea 
cocks  "calling  for  rain." 

Sometimes  the  experiences  of  delicious  years  make  a 
i  stained  glass  window — the  rose  window  of  the  west — in 
the  cathedral  of  our  life.  These  three  years  in  "dirty 
old  Sullivan,"  as  one  of  my  sisters  once  called  it  (with  a 
lip-curl  of  contempt  thrown  in  for  good  measure),  form 
such  a  flower  of  stained  glass  in  mine.  They  are  my  rose 
window.  In  symphonies  of  leaded  glass,  blue,  violet, 
gold  and  rose  are  the  sweet  harmonies  of  memory  with 
all  the  ills  of  youth  discarded.  A  bare-foot  boy  is  sit 
ting  astride  a  high  board  fence  at  dawn.  Above  him 
are  the  tinted  fleeces  of  heaven,  those  golden  argosies  of 
youthful  seas  of  dream.  Over  the  blooming  clover  are 
scudding  the  swallows,  "my  heart  remembers  how."  I 
look,  and  in  a  fence  corner  is  a  spider  web  impearled 
with  dew,  a  great  yellow  spider  somewhere  on  its  sur 
face  is  repairing  a  strand.  At  a  window  commanding 
the  field,  a  window  in  the  kitchen,  is  my  mother.  My 
brother  Ed  has  not  risen  yet,  nor  my  sister  Tillie.  The 
boy  looks  at  the  sky.  He  loves  the  feel  of  the  dawn. 
He  knows  nothing  of  whence  he  is  coming  or  where  he 
is  going,  only  all  is  sensuously,  deliriously  gay  and  beau 
tiful.  Youth  is  his:  the  tingle  and  response  of  a  new 
body;  the  bloom  and  fragrance  of  the  clover  in  the  air; 
the  sense  of  the  mystery  of  flying.  He  sits  and  sings 
some  tuneless  tune.  Of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

Or  it  is  a  great  tree,  say,  a  hundred  yards  from  the 
house.  In  its  thick  leaves  and  widespreading  branches 
the  wind  is  stirring.  Under  its  shade  Ed  and  Tillie  and 
I  are  playing  house.  What  am  I?  Oh,  a  son,  a  hus 
band,  or  indeed  anything  that  the  occasion  requires.  We 
play  at  duties — getting  breakfast,  or  going  to  work,  or 
coming  home.  Why?  But  a  turtle  dove  is  calling  some 
where  in  the  depths  of  a  woodland,  and  that  gives  me 
pause.  "Bob  white"  cries  and  I  think  of  strange  and 
faroff  things  to  come.  A  buzzard  is  poised  in  the  high 
blue  above  and  I  wish  I  might  soar  on  wings  as  wide. 

Or  is  it  a  day  with  a  pet  dog?    Now  they  are  running 


THE  ROSE  WINDOW  19 

side  by  side  over  a  stubbly  field.  Now  the  dog  has  wan 
dered  away  and  the  boy  is  calling.  Now  the  boy  is 
sitting  in  a  rocking  chair  by  a  window  and  holding  the 
dog  in  his  lap,  studying  a  gnarled  tree  in  the  distance, 
where  sits  a  hawk  all  day,  meditating  no  doubt  on  his 
midnight  crimes.  Now  the  dog  is  gone  forever,  shot 
somewhere  for  chasing  sheep,  and  the  boy,  disconsolate, 
is  standing  under  a  tree,  calling,  calling,  calling,  until 
the  sadness  of  his  own  voice  and  the  futility  of  his  cries 
moves  him  nearly  to  tears. 

These  and  many  scenes  like  these  make  my  rose  win 
dow  of  the  west. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  SCENIC   ROUTE 

IT  was  a  flash  of  all  this  that  came  to  me  when  in  the 
midst  of  the  blathering  and  fol  de  rol  of  a  gay  evening 
Franklin  suddenly  approached  me  and  said,  quite  apropos 
of  nothing:  "How  would  you  like  to  go  out  to  Indiana 
in  my  car?" 

"I'll  tell  you  what,  Franklin,"  I  answered,  "all  my 
life  I've  been  thinking  of  making  a  return  trip  to  Indiana 
and  writing  a  book  about  it.  I  was  born  in  Terre  Haute, 
down  in  the  southwest  there  below  you,  and  I  was  brought 
up  in  Sullivan  and  Evansville  in  the  southern  part  of 
the  state  and  in  Warsaw  up  north.  Agree  to  take  me 
to  all  those  places  after  we  get  there,  and  I'll  go.  What's 
more,  you  can  illustrate  the  book  if  you  will." 

"I'll  do  that,"  he  said.  "Warsaw  is  only  about  two 
hours  north  of  our  place.  Terre  Haute  is  seventyfive 
miles  away.  Evansville  is  a  hundred  and  fifty.  We'll 
make  a  oneday  trip  to  the  northern  part  and  a  three- 
day  trip  to  the  southern.  I  stipulate  but  one  thing.  If 
we  ruin  many  tires,  we  split  the  cost." 

To  this  I  agreed. 

Franklin's  home  was  really  central  for  all  places.  It 
was  at  Carmel,  fifteen  miles  north  of  Indianapolis.  His 
plan,  once  the  trip  was  over,  was  to  camp  there  in  his 
country  studio,  and  paint  during  the  autumn.  Mine  was 
to  return  direct  to  New  York. 

We  were  to  go  up  the  Hudson  to  Albany  and  via 
various  perfect  state  roads  to  Buffalo.  There  we  were 
to  follow  other  smooth  roads  along  the  shore  of  Lake 
Erie  to  Cleveland  and  Toledo,  and  possibly  Detroit. 
There  we  were  to  cut  southwest  to  Indianapolis — so  close 
to  Carmel.  It  had  not  occurred  to  either  of  us  yet  to 

20 


THE  SCENIC  ROUTE  21 

go  direct  to  Warsaw  from  Toledo  or  thereabouts,  and 
thence  south  to  Carmel.  That  was  to  come  as  an  after 
thought. 

But  this  Hudson-Albany-State-road  route  irritated  me 
from  the  very  first.  Everyone  traveling  in  an  automobile 
seemed  inclined  to  travel  that  way.  I  had  a  vision  of 
thousands  of  cars  which  we  would  have  to  trail,  con 
suming  their  dust,  or  meet  and  pass,  coming  toward  us. 
By  now  the  Hudson  River  was  a  chestnut.  Having  trav 
eled  by  the  Pennsylvania  and  the  Central  over  and  over 
to  the  west,  all  this  mid-New  York  and  southern  Pennsyl 
vania  territory  was  wearisome  to  think  of.  Give  me  the 
poor,  undernourished  routes  which  the  dull,  imitative 
rabble  shun,  and  where,  because  of  this  very  fact,  you 
have  some  peace  and  quiet.  I  traveled  all  the  way  up 
town  the  next  day  to  voice  my  preference  in  regard  to 
this  matter. 

"I'd  like  to  make  a  book  out  of  this,"  I  explained,  "if 
the  material  is  interesting  enough,  and  there  isn't  a  thing 
that  you  can  say  about  the  Hudson  River  or  the  central 
part  of  New  York  State  that  hasn't  been  said  a  thou 
sand  times  before.  Poughkeepsie,  Albany,  Troy,  Syra 
cuse,  Rochester — all  ghastly  manufacturing  towns.  Why 
don't  we  cut  due  west  and  see  how  we  make  out?  This 
is  the  nicest,  dryest  time  of  the  year.  Let's  go  west  to 
the  Water  Gap,  and  straight  from  there  through  Penn 
sylvania  to  some  point  in  Ohio,  then  on  to  Indianapolis." 
A  vision  of  quaint,  wild,  unexpected  regions  in  Pennsyl 
vania  came  to  me. 

"Very  good,"  he  replied  genially.  He  was  playing 
with  a  cheerful,  pop-eyed  French  bull.  "Perhaps  that 
would  be  better.  The  other  would  have  the  best  roads, 
but  we're  not  going  for  roads  exactly.  Do  you  know  the 
country  out  through  there?" 

"No,"  I  replied.  "But  we  can  find  out.  I  suppose  the 
Automobile  Club  of  America  ought  to  help  us.  I  might 
go  round  there  and  see  what  I  can  discover." 

"Do  that,"  he  applauded,  and  I  was  making  to  depart 


22  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

when  Franklin's  brother  and  his  chauffeur  entered.  The 
latter  he  introduced  as  uSpeed." 

"Speed,"  he  said,  "this  is  Mr.  Dreiser,  who  is  going 
with  us.  He  wants  to  ride  directly  west  across  Penn 
sylvania  to  Ohio  and  so  on  to  Indianapolis.  Do  you  think 
you  can  take  us  through  that  way?" 

A  blond,  lithe,  gangling  youth  with  an  eerie  farmer- 
like  look  and  smile  ambled  across  the  room  and  took 
my  hand.  He  seemed  half  mechanic,  half  street-car  con 
ductor,  half  mentor,  guide  and  friend. 

"Sure,"  he  replied,  with  a  kind  of  childish  smile  that 
;  won  instantly — a  little  girl  smile,  really.  "If  there  are 
any  roads,  I  can.  We  can  go  anywhere  the  car'll  go." 

I  liked  him  thoroughly.  All  the  time  I  was  trying 
to  think  where  I  had  seen  Speed  before.  Suddenly  it 
came  to  me.  There  had  been  a  car  conductor  in  a  re 
cent  comedy.  This  was  the  stage  character  to  life.  Be 
sides  he  reeked  of  Indiana — the  real  Hoosier.  If  you 
have  ever  seen  one,  you'll  know  what  I  mean. 

"Very  good,"  I  said.  "Fine.  Are  you  as  swift  as 
your  name  indicates,  Speed?" 

"I'm  pretty  swift,"  he  said,  with  the  same  glance  that 
a  collie  will  give  you  at  times — a  gay,  innocent  light  of 
the  eyes ! 

A  little  while  later  Franklin  was  saying  to  me  that  he 
had  no  real  complaint  against  Speed  except  this:  "If  you 
drive  up  to  the  St.  Regis  and  go  in  for  half  an  hour,  when 
you  come  out  the  sidewalk  is  all  covered  with  tools  and 
the  engine  dismantled — that  is,  if  the  police  have  not 
interfered." 

"Just  the  same,"  put  in  Fred  Booth,  "he  is  one  of  the 
chauffeurs  who  led  the  procession  of  cars  from  New  York 
over  the  Alleghanies  and  Rockies  to  the  coast,  laying  out 
the  Lincoln  Highway."  (Afterwards  I  saw  testimonials 
and  autographed  plates  which  proved  this.)  "He  can 
take  a  car  anywhere  she'll  go." 

Then  I  proceeded  to  the  great  automobile  club  for 
information. 


THE  SCENIC  ROUTE  23 

"Are  you  a  member?"  asked  the  smug  attendant,  a 
polite,  airy,  bufferish  character. 

"No,   only  the  temporary  possessor  of  a  car  for   a 


tour." 


"Then  we  can  do  nothing  for  you.  Only  members  are 
provided  with  information. " 

On  the  table  by  which  I  was  standing  lay  an  automo 
bile  monthly.  In  its  pages,  which  I  had  been  idly  thumb 
ing  as  I  waited,  were  a  dozen  maps  of  tours,  those  de 
ceptive  things  gotten  up  by  associated  roadhouses  and 
hotels  in  their  own  interest.  One  was  labeled  "The 
Scenic  Route,"  and  showed  a  broad  black  line  extending 
from  New  York  via  the  Water  Gap,  Stroudsburg,  Wilkes- 
Barre,  Scranton,  Binghamton,  and  a  place  called  Watkins 
Glen,  to  Buffalo  and  Niagara  Falls.  This  interested  me. 
These  places  are  in  the  heart  of  the  Alleghanies  and  of 
the  anthracite  coal  region.  Visions  of  green  hills,  deep 
valleys,  winding  rivers,  glistering  cataracts  and  the  like 
leaped  before  my  mind. 

"The  Scenic  Route!"  I  ventured.  "Here's  a  map  that 
seems  to  cover  what  I  want.  What  number  is  this?" 

"Take  it,  take  it!"  replied  the  lofty  attendant,  as  if 
to  shoo  me  out  of  the  place.  "You  are  welcome." 

"May  I  pay  you?" 

"No,  no,  you're  welcome  to  it." 

I  bowed  myself  humbly  away. 

"Well,  auto  club  or  no  auto  club,  here  is  something, 
a  real  route,"  I  said  to  myself.  "Anyhow  it  will  do 
to  get  us  as  far  as  Wilkes-Barre  or  Scranton.  After 
that  we'll  just  cut  west  if  we  have  to." 

On  the  way  home  I  mooned  over  such  names  as  To- 
byhanna,  Meshoppen,  Blossburg,  and  Roaring  Branch. 
What  sort  of  places  were  they?  Oh,  to  be  speeding  along 
in  this  fine  warm  August  weather!  To  be  looking  at  the 
odd  places,  seeing  mountains,  going  back  to  Warsaw  and 
Sullivan  and  Terre  Haute  and  Evansville! 


CHAPTER  III 

ACROSS  THE  MEADOWS  TO  THE  PASSAIC 

I  ASSUME  that  automobiling,  even  to  the  extent  of  a 
two-thousand-mile  trip  such  as  this  proved  to  be,  is  an 
old  story  to  most  people.  Anybody  can  do  it,  appar 
ently.  The  difference  is  to  the  man  who  is  making  the 
trip,  and  for  me  this  one  had  the  added  fillip  of  includ 
ing  that  pilgrimage  which  I  was  certain  of  making  some 
time. 

There  was  an  unavoidable  delay  owing  to  the  sudden 
illness  of  Speed,  and  then  the  next  morning,  when  I  was 
uncertain  as  to  whether  the  trip  had  been  abandoned  or 
no,  the  car  appeared  at  my  door  in  Tenth  Street,  and 
off  we  sped.  There  were  some  amusing  preliminaries. 

I  was  introduced  to  Miss  H ,  a  lady  who  was  to 

accompany  us  on  the  first  day  of  our  journey.  A  photo 
graph  was  taken,  the  bags  had  to  be  arranged  and 
strapped  on  the  outside,  and  Speed  had  to  examine  his 
engine  most  carefully.  Finally  we  were  off — up  Eighth 
Avenue  and  across  Fortysecond  Street  to  the  West  Forty- 
second  Street  Ferry,  while  we  talked  of  non-skid  chains 
and  Silvertown  tires  and  the  durability  of  the  machines 
in  general — this  one  in  particular.  It  proved  to  be  a 
handsome  sixty-horsepower  Pathfinder,  only  recently 
purchased,  very  presentable  and  shiny. 

As  we  crossed  the  West  Fortysecond  Street  Ferry  I 
stood  out  on  the  front  deck  till  we  landed,  looking  at  the 
refreshing  scene  the  river  presented.  The  day  was  fine, 
nearly  mid-August,  with  a  sky  as  blue  as  weak  indigo. 
Flocks  of  gulls  that  frequent  the  North  River  were  dip 
ping  and  wheeling.  A  cool,  fresh  wind  was  blowing. 

As  we  stood  out  in  front  Miss  H deigned  to  tell 

me  something  of  her  life.  She  is  one  of  those  self- 

24 


ACROSS  THE  MEADOWS  TO  THE  PASSAIC     25 

conscious,  carefully  dressed,  seemingly  prosperous  maid 
ens  of  some  beauty  who  frequent  the  stage  and  the 
studios.  At  present  she  was  Franklin's  chief  model. 
Recently  she  had  been  in  some  pantomime,  dancing.  A 
little  wearied  perhaps  (for  all  her  looks),  she  told  me 
her  stage  and  art  experiences.  She  had  to  do  something. 
She  could  sing,  dance,  act  a  little,  and  draw,  she  said. 
Artists  seemed  to  crave  her  as  a  model — so 

She  lifted  a  thin  silk  veil  and  dabbed  her  nose  with 
a  mere  rumor  of  a  handkerchief.  Looking  at  her  so 
fresh  and  spick  in  the  morning  sunlight,  I  could  not  help 
feeling  that  Franklin  was  to  be  congratulated  in  the 
selection  of  his  models. 

But  in  a  few  minutes  we  were  off  again,  Speed  obvi 
ously  holding  in  the  machine  out  of  respect  for  officers 
who  appeared  at  intervals,  even  in  Weehawken,  to  wave 
us  on  or  back.  I  could  not  help  feeling  as  I  looked 
at  them  how  rapidly  the  passion  for  regulating  street 
traffic  had  grown  in  the  last  few  years.  Everywhere  we 
seemed  to  be  encountering  them — the  regulation  New 
York  police  cap  (borrowed  from  the  German  army) 
shading  their  eyes,  their  air  of  majesty  beggaring  the 
memories  of  Rome — and  scarcely  a  wagon  to  regulate. 
At  Passaic,  at  Paterson — but  I  anticipate. 

As  we  hunted  for  a  road  across  the  meadows  we  got 
lost  in  a  maze  of  shabby  streets  where  dirty  children 
were  playing  in  the  dust,  and,  as  we  gingerly  picked  our 
way  over  rough  cobbles,  I  began  to  fear  that  much  of 
this  would  make  a  disagreeable  trip.  But  we  would  soon 
be  out  of  it,  in  all  likelihood — miles  and  miles  away  from 
the  hot,  dusty  city. 

I  can  think  of  nothing  more  suited  to  my  temperament 
than  automobiling.  It  supplies  just  that  mixture  of 
change  in  fixity  which  satisfies  me — leaves  me  mentally 
poised  in  inquiry,  which  is  always  delightful.  Now,  for 
instance,  we  were  coming  out  on  a  wide,  smooth  macadam 
road,  which  led,  without  a  break,  as  someone  informed 
us,  into  Passaic  and  then  into  Paterson.  It  was  the  first 
opportunity  that  Speed  had  had  to  show  what  the  ma- 


26  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

chine  could  do,  and  instantly,  though  various  signs  read, 
"Speed  limit:  25  miles  an  hour,"  I  saw  the  speedometer 
climb  to  thirtyfive  and  then  forty  and  then  fortyfive. 
It  was  a  smooth-running  machine  which,  at  its  best  (or 
worst),  gave  vent  to  a  tr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r  which  became 
after  a  while  somewhat  like  a  croon. 

Though  it  was  a  blazing  hot  day  (as  any  momentary 
pause  proved,  the  leather  cushions  becoming  like  an 
oven),  on  this  smooth  road,  and  at  this  speed,  it  was 
almost  too  cool.  I  had  decked  myself  out  in  a  brown 
linen  outing  shirt  and  low  visored  cap.  Now  I  felt  as 
though  I  might  require  my  overcoat.  There  was  no  dust 
to  speak  of,  and  under  the  low  branches  of  trees  and 
passing  delightful  dooryards  all  the  homey  flowers  of 
August  were  blooming  in  abundance.  Now  we  were  fol 
lowing  the  Hackensack  and  the  Passaic  in  spots,  seeing 
long,  low  brick  sheds  in  the  former  set  down  in  wind 
rhythmed  marsh  grass,  and  on  the  latter  towering  stacks 
and  also  simple  clubs  where  canoes  were  to  be  seen — 
white,  red  and  green — and  a  kind  of  August  summer  life 
prevailing  for  those  who  could  not  go  further.  I  was 
becoming  enamored  of  our  American  country  life  once 
more. 

Paterson,  to  most  New  Yorkers,  and  for  that  matter 
to  most  Americans,  may  be  an  old  story.  To  me  it  is 
one  of  the  most  interesting  pools  of  life  I  know.  There 
is  nothing  in  Paterson,  most  people  will  tell  you,  save  silk 
mills  and  five-and-ten-cent  stores.  It  is  true.  Yet  to  me 
it  is  a  beautiful  city  in  the  creative  sense — a  place  in  which 
to  stage  a  great  novel.  These  mills — have  you  ever  seen 
them?  They  line  the  Passaic  river  and  various  smooth 
canals  that  branch  out  from  it.  It  was  no  doubt  the  well- 
known  waterfall  and  rapids  of  this  river  that  originally 
drew  manufacturers  to  Paterson,  supplied  the  first  mills 
with  water,  and  gave  the  city  its  start.  Then  along  came 
steam  and  all  the  wonders  of  modern  electricity-driven 
looms.  The  day  we  were  there  they  were  just  complet 
ing  a  power  plant  or  city  water  supply  system.  The 
ground  around  the  falls  had  been  parked,  and  standing 


ACROSS  THE  MEADOWS  TO  THE  PASSAIC     27 

on  a  new  bridge  one  could  look  down  into  a  great  round, 
grey-black  pit  or  cup,  into  which  tumbled  the  water  of  the 
sturdy  little  river  above.  By  the  drop  of  eighty  or  a 
hundred  feet  it  was  churned  into  a  white  spray  which 
bounded  back  almost  to  the  bridge  where  we  stood.  In 
this  gay  sunlight  a  rainbow  was  ever  present — a  fine  five- 
striped  thing,  which  paled  and  then  strengthened  as  the 
spray  thinned  or  thickened. 

Below,  over  a  great  flume  of  rocks,  that  stretched  out 
ward  toward  the  city,  the  expended  current  was  bubbling 
away,  spinning  past  the  mills  and  the  bridges.  From  the 
mills  themselves,  as  one  drew  near,  came  the  crash  of 
shuttles  and  the  thrum  of  spindles,  where  thousands  of 
workers  were  immured,  weaving  the  silk  which  probably 
they  might  never  wear.  I  could  not  help  thinking,  as  I 
stood  looking  at  them,  of  the  great  strike  that  had  oc 
curred  two  years  before,  in  which  all  sorts  of  nameless 
brutalities  had  occurred,  brutalities  practised  by  judges, 
manufacturers  and  the  police  no  less  than  by  the  eager 
workers  themselves. 

In  spite  of  all  the  evidence  I  have  that  human  nature  is  V 
much  the  same  at  the  bottom  as  at  the  top,  and  that  the'* 
restless  striker  of  today  may  be  the  oppressive  manufac 
turer  or  boss  of  tomorrow,  I  cannot  help  sympathizing 
with  the  working  rank  and  file.  Why  should  the  man  at 
the  top,  I  ask  myself,  want  more  than  a  reasonable  au 
thority?  Why  endless  houses,  and  lands,  and  stocks,  and 
bonds  to  flaunt  a  prosperity  that  he  does  not  need  and  can 
not  feel?  I  am  convinced  that  man  in  toto — the  race 
itself — is  nothing  more  nor  less  as  yet  than  an  embryo 
in  the  womb  of  something  which  we  cannot  see.  We  are 
to  be  protected  (as  a  race)  and  born  into  something 
(some  state)  which  we  cannot  as  yet  understand  or  even 
feel.  We,  as  individual  atoms,  may  never  know,  any 
more  than  the  atoms  or  individual  plasm  cells  which  con 
structed  us  ever  knew.  But  we  race  atoms  are  being 
driven  to  do  something,  construct  something — (a  race 
man  or  woman,  let  us  say) — and  like  the  atoms  in  the 
embryo,  we  are  struggling  and  fetching  and  carrying.  I 


28  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

did  not  always  believe  in  some  one  "divine  faroff  event" 
for  the  race.  I  do  not  accept  the  adjective  divine  even 
now.  But  I  do  believe  that  these  atoms  are  not  toiling  for 
exactly  nothing — or  at  least,  that  the  nothingness  is  not 
quite  as  undeniable  as  it  was.  There  is  something  back 
of  man.  An  avatar,  a  devil,  anything  you  will,  is  trying 
to  do  something,  and  man  is  His  medium,  His  brush, 
His  paint,  His  idea.  Against  the  illimitable  space  of 
things  He  is  attempting  to  set  forth  his  vision.  Is  the 
vision  good?  Who  knows!  It  may  be  as  bad  as  that  of 
the  lowest  vaudeville  performer  clowning  it  before  a 
hoodlum  audience.  But  good  or  bad,  here  it  is,  strug 
gling  to  make  itself  manifest,  and  we  are  of  it! 

What  if  it  is  all  a  mad,  aimless  farce,  my  masters? 
Shan't  we  clown  it  all  together  and  make  the  best  of  it? 

Ha  ha !  Ho  ho !  We  are  all  crazy  and  He  is  crazy ! 
Ha  ha!  Ho  ho! 

Or  do  I  hear  someone  crying? 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE   PIETY  AND   EGGS    OF   PATERSON 

BUT  in  addition  to  mills  and  the  falls,  Paterson  offered 
another  subject  of  conversation.  Only  recently  there  had 
been  completed  there  an  evangelical  revival  by  one 
"Billy"  Sunday,  who  had  addressed  from  eight  to  twenty 
thousand  people  at  each  meeting  in  a  specially  constructed 
tabernacle,  and  caused  from  one  to  five  hundred  or  a 
thousand  a  day  to  "hit  the  trail,"  as  he  phrased  it,  or  in 
other  words  to  declare  that  they  were  "converted  to 
Christ,"  and  hence  saved. 

America  strikes  me  as  an  exceedingly  intelligent  land 
at  times,  with  its  far-flung  states,  its  fine  mechanical 
equipment,  its  good  homes  and  liberal,  rather  non-inter 
fering  form  of  government,  but  when  one  contemplates 
such  a  mountebank  spectacle  as  this,  what  is  one  to  say? 
I  suppose  one  had  really  better  go  deeper  than  America 
and  contemplate  nature  itself.  But  then  what  is  one  to 
say  of  nature? 

We  discussed  this  while  passing  various  mills  and 
brown  wooden  streets,  so  poor  that  they  were  discour 
aging.  ^ 

"It  is  curious,  but  it  is  just  such  places  as  Paterson 
that  seem  to  be  afflicted  with  unreasoning  emotions  of  this 
kind,"  observed  Franklin  wearily.  "Gather  together 
hordes  of  working  people  who  have  little  or  no  skill 
above  machines,  and  then  comes  the  revivalist  and  waves 
of  religion.  Look  at  Pittsburg  and  Philadelphia.  See 
how  well  Sunday  did  there.  He  converted  thousands." 

He  smiled  heavily. 

*  'Billy*  Sunday  comes  from  out  near  your  town,"  vol 
unteered  Speed  informatively.  "He  lives  at  Winona 
Lake.  That's  a  part  of  Warsaw  now." 

29 


30  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

"Yes,  and  he  conducts  a  summer  revival  right  there 
occasionally,  I  believe,"  added  Franklin,  a  little  vin 
dictively,  I  thought. 

"Save  me !"  I  pleaded.  "Anyhow,  I  wasn't  born  there. 
I  only  lived  there  for  a  little  while." 

This  revival  came  directly  on  the  heels  of  a  great 
strike,  during  which  thousands  were  compelled  to  obtain 
their  food  at  soup  houses,  or  to  report  weekly  to  the  local 
officers  of  the  union  for  some  slight  dole.  The  good  God 
was  giving  them  wrathful,  condemnatory  manufacturers, 
and  clubbing,  cynical  police.  Who  was  it,  then,  that 
"revived"  and  "hit  the  trail"?  The  same  who  were 
starved  and  clubbed  and  lived  in  camps,  and  were  rail 
roaded  to  jail?  Or  were  they  the  families  of  the  bosses 
and  manufacturers,  who  had  suppressed  the  strike  and 
were  thankful  for  past  favors  (for  they  eventually  won, 
I  believe)  ?  Or  was  it  some  intermediate  element  that 
had  nothing  to  do  with  manufacturers  or  workers? 

The  day  we  went  through,  some  Sunday  school  parade 
was  preparing.  There  were  dozens  of  wagons  and  auto 
trucks  and  automobiles  gaily  bedecked  with  flags  and 
bunting  and  Sunday  school  banners.  Hundreds,  I  might 
almost  guess  thousands,  of  children  in  freshly  ironed 
white  dresses  and  gay  ribbons,  carrying  parasols,  and 
chaperoned  by  various  serious  looking  mothers  and 
elders,  were  in  these  conveyances,  all  celebrating,  pre 
sumably,  the  glory  and  goodness  of  God ! 

A  spectacle  like  this,  I  am  free  to  say,  invariably  causes 
me  to  scoff.  I  cannot  help  smiling  at  a  world  that  cannot 
devise  some  really  poetical  or  ethical  reason  for  wor 
shiping  or  celebrating  or  what  you  will,  but  must  indulge 
in  shrines  and  genuflections  and  temples  to  false  or  im 
possible  ideas  or  deities.  They  have  made  a  God  of 
Christ,  who  was  at  best  a  humanitarian  poet — but  not 
on  the  basis  on  which  he  offered  himself.  Never!  They 
had  to  bind  him  up  with  the  execrable  yah-vah  of  the 
Hebrews,  and  make  him  now  a  God  of  mercy,  and  now  a 
God  of  horror.  (They  had  to  dig  themselves  a  hell,  and 
they  still  cling  to  it.  They  had  to  secure  a  church  organ- 


THE  PIETY  AND  EGGS  OF  PATERSON      31 

ization  and  appoint  strutting  vicars  of  Christ  to  misin 
terpret  him,  and  all  that  he  believed.  This  wretched 
mountebank  "who  came  here  and  converted  thousands" 
— think  of  him  with  his  yapping  about  hell,  his  bar-room 
and  race-track  slang,  his  base-ball  vocabulary.  And  thou 
sands  of  poor  worms  who  could  not  possibly  offer  one 
reasonable  or  intelligible  thought  concerning  their  faith 
or  history  or  life,  or  indeed  anything,  fall  on  their  knees 
and  "accept  Christ."  And  then  they  pass  the  collection 
plate  and  build  more  temples  and  conduct  more  revivals. 

What  does  the  God  of  our  universe  want,  anyway? 
Slaves?  Or  beings  who  attempt  to  think?  Is  the  fable 
of  Prometheus  true  after  all?  Is  autocracy  the  true  in 
terpretation  of  all  things — or  is  this  an  accidental  phase, 
infinitely  brief  in  the  long  flow  of  things,  and  eventually 
to  be  done  away  with?  I,  for  one,  hope  so. 

Beyond  Paterson  we  found  a  rather  good  road  leading 
to  a  place  called  Boonton,  via  Little  Falls,  Singac,  and 
other  smaller  towns,  and  still  skirting  the  banks  of  the 
Passaic  River.  In  Paterson  we  had  purchased  four  hard- 
boiled  eggs,  two  pies,  four  slices  of  ham  and  some  slices 
of  bread,  and  four  bottles  of  beer,  and  it  being  some 
where  near  noon  we  decided  to  have  lunch.  The  task  of 
finding  an  ideal  spot  was  difficult,  for  we  were  in  a  holi 
day  mood  and  content  with  nothing  less  than  perfection. 
Although  we  were  constantly  passing  idyllic  scenes — 
waterfalls,  glens,  a  canal  crossing  over  a  stream — none 
would  do  exactly.  In  most  places  there  was  no  means  of 
bringing  the  car  near  enough  to  watch  it.  One  spot 
proved  of  considerable  interest,  however,  for,  although 
we  did  not  stay,  in  spying  about  we  found  an  old  moss- 
covered,  red  granite  block  three  feet  square  and  at  least 
eight  feet  long,  on  which  was  carved  a  statement  to  the 
effect  that  this  canal  had  been  completed  in  1829,  and 
that  the  following  gentlemen,  as  officers  and  directors, 
had  been  responsible.  Then  followed  a  long  list  of  names 
— Adoniram  this,  and  Cornelius  that,  good  and  true  busi 
ness  men  all,  whose  carved  symbols  were  now  stuffed  with 
mud  and  dust.  This  same  canal  was  very  familiar  to 


32  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

me,  I  having  walked  every  inch  of  it  from  New  York  to 
the  Delaware  River  during  various  summer  holidays. 
But  somehow  I  had  never  before  come  upon  this  me 
morial  stone.  Here  some  twenty  men,  of  a  period  so 
late  as  1829,  caused  their  names  to  be  graven  on  a  great 
stone  which  should  attest  their  part  in  the  construction 
of  a  great  canal — a  canal  reaching  from  New  York  Bay 
to  the  Delaware  River — and  here  lies  the  record  under 
dust  and  vines !  The  canal  itself  is  now  entirely  obsolete. 
Although  the  State  of  New  Jersey  annually  spends  some 
little  money  to  keep  it  clean,  it  is  rarely  if  ever  used  by 
boats.  It  was  designed  originally  to  bring  hard  coal  from 
that  same  region  around  Wilkes-Barre  and  Scranton,  to 
ward  which  we  were  speeding.  A  powerful  railroad  cor 
poration  crept  in,  paralleled  it,  and  destroyed  it.  This 
same  corporation,  eager  to  make  its  work  complete,  and 
thinking  that  the  mere  existence  of  the  canal  might  some 
day  cause  it  to  be  revived,  and  wanting  no  water  competi 
tion  in  the  carrying  of  coal,  had  a  bill  introduced  into  the 
State  legislature  of  New  Jersey,  ordering,  or  at  least 
sanctioning  that  it  should  be  filled  in,  in  places.  Some 
citizens  objected,  several  newspapers  cried  out,  and  so  the 
bill  was  dropped.  But  you  may  walk  along  a  canal  cost 
ing  originally  fifty  million  dollars,  and  still  ornamented 
at  regular  intervals  with  locks  and  planes,  and  never  en 
counter  anything  larger  than  a  canoe.  Pretty  farm 
houses  face  it  now;  door  yards  come  down  to  the  very 
water;  ducks  and  swans  float  on  its  surface  and  cattle 
graze  nearby.  I  have  spent  as  much  as  two  long  spring 
times  idling  along  its  banks.  It  is  beautiful — but  it  is 
useless. 

We  did  eventually  come  to  a  place  that  suited  us  ex 
actly  for  our  picnic.  The  river  we  were  following  wid 
ened  at  this  point  and  skirted  so  near  the  road  that  it  was 
no  trouble  to  have  our  machine  near  at  hand  and  still  sit 
under  the  trees  by  the  waterside.  Cottages  and  tents 
were  sprinkled  cheerily  along  the  farther  shore,  and  the 
river  was  dotted  with  canoes  and  punts  of  various  colors. 
Under  a  group  of  trees  we  stepped  out  and  spread  our 


THE  PIETY  AND  EGGS  OF  PATERSON      33 

feast.  It  was  all  so  lovely  that  it  seemed  a  bit  out  of 
fairyland  or  a  sketch  by  Watteau.  Franklin  being  a 
Christian  Scientist,  it  was  his  duty,  as  I  explained  to  him, 
to  "think"  any  flies  or  mosquitoes  away — to  "realize" 
for  us  all  that  they  could  not  be,  and  so  leave  us  to  enjoy 
our  meal  in  peace.  Miss  H was  to  be  the  back 
ground  of  perfection,  the  color  spot,  the  proof  of  holi 
day,  like  all  the  ladies  in  Watteau  and  Boucher.  The 
machine  and  Speed,  his  cap  adjusted  to  a  rakish  angle, 
were  to  prove  that  we  were  gentlemen  of  leisure.  On 
leaving  New  York  I  saw  that  he  had  a  moustache  capable 
of  that  upward  twist  so  admired  of  the  German  Emperor, 
and  so  now  I  began  to  urge  him  to  make  the  ends  stand 
up  so  that  he  would  be  the  embodiment  of  the  distingue. 
Nothing  loath,  he  complied  smilingly,  that  same  collie- 
like  smile  in  his  eyes  that  I  so  much  enjoy. 

It  was  Franklin  who  had  purchased  the  eggs.  He  had 
gone  across  the  street  in  Paterson,  his  belted  dust-coat 
swinging  most  impressively,  and  entering  a  little  quick 
lunch  room,  had  purchased  these  same  eggs.  Afterward 
he  admitted  that  as  he  was  leaving  he  noticed  the  black 
moustached  face  of  a  cook  and  the  villainous  head  of  a 
scullion  peering  after  him  from  a  sort  of  cook's  galley 
window  with  what  seemed  to  him  "a  rumor  of  a  sardonic 
smile."  But  suspecting  nothing,  he  went  his  way.  Now, 
however,  I  peeled  one  of  these  eggs,  and  touching  it  with 
salt,  bit  into  it.  Then  I  slowly  turned  my  head,  extracted 
as  much  as  I  could  silently  with  a  paper  napkin,  and  de 
posited  it  with  an  air  of  great  peace  up6n  the  ground.  I 
did  not  propose  to  be  the  butt  of  any  ribald  remarks. 

Presently  I  saw  Franklin  preparing  his.  He  crushed 
the  shell,  and  after  stripping  the  glistening  surface  dipped 
it  in  salt.  I  wondered  would  it  be  good.  Then  he  bit 
into  it  and  paused,  took  up  a  napkin  with  a  very  graceful 
and  philosophic  air,  and  wiped  his  mouth.  I  was  not 
quite  sure  what  had  happened. 

"Was  your  egg  good?"  he  said  finally,  examining  me 
with  an  odd  expression. 

"It  was  not,"  I  replied.     "The  most  villainously  bad 


34  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

egg  I  have  had  in  years.  And  here  it  goes,  straight  to 
the  fishes." 

I  threw  it. 

"Well,  they  can  have  mine/'  observed  Miss  H , 

sniffing  gingerly. 

"What  do  you  know  about  that?"  exclaimed  Speed, 
who  was  sitting  some  distance  from  the  rest  of  us  and 
consuming  his  share.  "I  think  the  man  that  sold  you 
those  ought  to  be  taken  out  and  slapped  gently,"  and  he 
threw  his  away.  "Say!  And  four  of  them  all  at  once 
too.  I'd  just  like  to  get  a  camera  and  photograph  him. 
He's  a  bird,  he  is." 

There  was  something  amazingly  comic  to  me  in  the 
very  sound  of  Speed's  voice.  I  cannot  indicate  just  what, 
but  his  attempt  at  scorn  was  so  inadequate,  so  childlike. 

"Well,  anyhow,  the  fishes  won't  mind,"  I  said.  "They 
like  nice,  fresh  Franklin  eggs.  Franklin  is  their  best 
friend,  aren't  you,  Franklin?  You  love  fishes,  don't 
you?" 

Booth  sat  there,  his  esoteric  faith  in  the  wellbeing  of 
everything  permitting  him  to  smile  a  gentle,  tolerant 
smile. 

"You  know,  I  wondered  why  those  two  fellows  seemed 
to  smile  at  me,"  he  finally  commented.  "They  must  have 
done  this  on  purpose." 

"Oh  no,"  I  replied,  "not  to  a  full  fledged  Christian 
Scientist!  Never!  These  eggs  must  be  perfect.  The 
error  is  with  us.  We  have  thought  bad  eggs,  that's  all." 

We  got  up  and  tossed  the  empty  beer  bottles  into  the 
stream,  trying  to  sink  them  with  stones.  I  think  I  added 
one  hundred  stones  to  the  bed  of  the  river  without  sink 
ing  a  single  bottle.  Speed  threw  in  a  rock  pretending  it 
was  a  bottle  and  I  even  threw  at  that  before  discovering 
my  mistake.  Finally  we  climbed  into  our  car  and  sped 
onward,  new  joys  always  glimmering  in  the  distance. 

"Just  to  think,"  I  said  to  myself,  "there  are  to  be  two 
whole  weeks  of  this  in  this  glorious  August  weather. 
What  lovely  things  we  shall  see!" 


CHAPTER    V 

ACROSS   THE   DELAWARE 

THE  afternoon  run  was  even  more  delightful  than 
that  of  the  morning.  Yet  one  does  not  really  get  free  of 
New  York — its  bustle  and  thickness  of  traffic — until  one 
gets  west  of  Paterson,  which  is  twentyfive  miles  west, 
and  not  even  then.  New  York  is  so  all  embracing.  It 
is  supposed  to  be  chiefly  represented  by  Manhattan 
Island,  but  the  feel  of  it  really  extends  to  the  Delaware 
Water  Gap,  one  hundred  miles  west,  as  it  does  to  the 
eastern  end  of  Long  Island,  one  hundred  miles  east,  and 
to  Philadelphia,  one  hundred  miles  south,  or  Albany, 
one  hundred  miles  north.  It  is  all  New  York. 

But  west  of  Paterson  and  Boonton  the  surge  of  traffic 
was  beginning  to  diminish,  and  we  were  beginning  to  taste 
the  real  country.  Not  so  many  autotrucks  and  wagons 
were  encountered  here,  though  automobiles  proper  were 
even  more  numerous,  if  anything.  This  was  a  wealthy 
residence  section  we  were  traversing,  with  large  hand 
some  machines  as  common  as  wagons  elsewhere,  and  the 
occupants  looked  their  material  prosperity.  The  roads, 
too,  as  far  as  Dover,  our  next  large  town,  thirty  miles 
on,  were  beautiful — smooth,  grey  and  white  macadam, 
lined  mostly  with  kempt  lawns,  handsome  hedges,  charm 
ing  dwellings,  and  now  and  then  yellow  fields  of  wheat 
or  oats  or  rye,  with  intermediate  acres  of  tall,  ripe  corn. 
I  never  saw  better  fields  of  grain,  and  remembered  read 
ing  in  the  papers  that  this  was  a  banner  season  for  crops. 
The  sky,  too,  was  wholly  entrancing,  a  clear  blue,  with 
great,  fleecy  clouds  sailing  along  in  the  distance  like  im 
mense  hills  or  ships.  We  passed  various  small  hotels 
and  summer  cottages,  nestling  among  these  low  hills, 
where  summer  boarders  were  sitting  on  verandas,  read- 

35 


36  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

ing  books  or  swinging  in  hammocks  or  crocheting,  Amer 
ican  fashion,  in  rocking  chairs.  All  my  dread  of  the  con 
ventional  American  family  arose  as  I  surveyed  them,  for 
somehow,  as  idyllic  as  all  this  might  appear  on  the 
surface,  it  smacked  the  least  bit  of  the  doldrums. 
Youths  and  maidens  playing  croquet  and  tennis,  mother 
(and  much  more  rarely  father)  seated  near,  reading  and 
watching.  The  three  regular  meals,  the  regular  nine 
o'clock  hour  for  retiring!  Well,  I  was  glad  we  were 
making  forty  miles  an  hour. 

As  we  passed  through  Dover  it  was  three  o'clock.  As 
we  passed  Hopatcong,  after  pausing  to  sketch  a  bridge 
over  the  canal,  it  was  nearing  four.  There  were  pauses 
constantly  which  interrupted  our  speed.  Now  it  was  a 
flock  of  birds  flying  over  a  pool,  all  their  fluttering  wings 
reflected  in  the  water,  and  Franklin  had  to  get  out  and 
make  a  pencil  note  of  it.  Now  a  lovely  view  over  some 
distant  hills,  a  small  town  in  a  valley,  a  factory  stack  by 
some  water  side. 

uSay,  do  these  people  here  ever  expect  to  get  to  In 
diana?"  remarked  Speed  in  an  aside  to  Miss  H . 

We  had  to  stop  in  Dover — a  city  of  thirty  thousand — 
at  the  principal  drug  store,  for  a  glass  of  ice  cream  soda. 
We  had  to  stop  at  Hopatcong  and  get  a  time  table  in 

order  to  learn  whether  Miss  H could  get  a  train  in 

from  the  Water  Gap  later  in  the  evening.  We  had  to 
stop  and  admire  a  garden  of  goldenglows  and  old  fash 
ioned  August  flowers. 

Beyond  Hopatcong  we  began  to  realize  that  we  would 
no  more  than  make  the  Water  Gap  this  day.  The  hills 
and  valleys  were  becoming  more  marked,  the  roads  more 
difficult  to  ascend.  As  we  passed  Stanhope,  a  small  town 
beyond  Hopatcong,  we  got  on  the  wrong  road  and  had 
to  return,  a  common  subsequent  experience.  Beyond 
Stanhope  we  petitioned  one  family  group — a  mother  and 
three  children — for  some  water,  and  were  refused.  A 
half  mile  further  on,  seeing  a  small  iron  pump  on  a  lawn, 
we  stopped  again.  A  lean,  dreamy  woman  came  out  and 
we  asked  her.  "Yes,  surely,"  she  replied  and  re-entered 


ACROSS  THE  DELAWARE  37 

the  house,  returning  with  a  blue  pitcher.  Chained  to  a 
nearby  tree  a  collie  bitch  which  looked  for  all  the  world 
like  a  fox  jumped  and  barked  for  joy. 

"Are  you  going  to  Hackettstown  ?"  asked  our  hostess 
simply. 

"We're  going  through  to  Indiana,"  confided  Franklin 
in  a  neighborly  fashion. 

A  look  of  childlike  wonder  at  the  far  off  came  into  the 
woman's  voice  and  eyes.  "To  Indiana?"  she  replied. 
"That's  a  long  way,  isn't  it?" 

"Oh,  about  nine  hundred  miles,"  volunteered  Speed 
briskly. 

As  we  sped  away — vain  of  our  exploit,  I  fancy — she 
stood  there,  pitcher  in  hand,  looking  after  us.  I  wished 
heartily  she  might  ride  all  the  long  distances  her  moods 
might  crave.  "Only,"  I  thought,  "would  it  be  a  fair 
exchange  for  all  her  delightsome  wonder?" 

This  side  of  Hackettstown  we  careened  along  a  ridge 
under  beautiful  trees  surveying  someone's  splendid  coun 
try  estate,  with  a  great  house,  a  lake  and  hills  of  sheep. 
On  the  other  side  of  Hackettstown  we  had  a  blow  out 
and  had  to  stop  and  change  a  tire.  A  Russian  moujik, 
transplanted  to  America  and  farming  in  this  region,  inter 
ested  me.  A  reaper  whirring  in  a  splendid  field  of  grain 
informed  me  that  we  were  abroad  at  harvest  time — we 
would  see  much  reaping  then.  While  the  wheel  was  being 
repaired  I  picked  up  a  scrap  of  newspaper  lying  on  the 
road.  It  was  of  recent  issue  and  contained  an  advertise 
ment  of  a  great  farm  for  sale  which  read  "Winter  is  no 
time  to  look  at  a  farm,  for  then  everything  is  out  of  com 
mission  and  you  cannot  tell  what  a  farm  is  worth.  Spring 
is  a  dangerous  time,  for  then  everything  is  at  its  best,  and 
you  are  apt  to  be  deceived  by  fields  and  houses  which 
later  you  would  not  think  of  buying.  Mid-August  is  the 
ideal  time.  Everything  is  bearing  by  then.  If  a  field  or 
a  yard  or  a  house  or  cattle  look  good  at  that  time  you 
may  be  sure  that  they  will  look  as  good  or  better  at 
others.  Examine  in  mid-August.  Examine  now." 

"Ah,"  I  said,  "now  I  shall  see  this  eastern  half  of  the 


38  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

United  States  at  the  best  time.  If  it  looks  good  now  I 
shall  know  pretty  well  how  good  eastern  America  is." 

And  so  we  sped  on,  passing  a  little  farther  on  a  for 
lorn,  decadent,  gloomy  hamlet  about  which  I  wanted  to 
write  a  poem  or  an  essay.  Edgar  Allan  Poe  might  have 
lived  here  and  written  "The  Raven."  The  house  of 
Usher  might  have  been  a  dwelling  in  one  of  these  hypo- 
chondriacal  streets.  They  were  so  dim  and  gloomy  and 
sad.  Still  farther  on  as  we  neared  the  Delaware  we 
came  into  a  mountain  country  which  seemed  almost  en 
tirely  devoted  to  cattle  and  the  dairy  business.  It  was 
not  an  ultra  prosperous  land — what  mountain  country  is? 
You  can  find  it  on  the  map  if  you  choose,  lying  between 
Phillipsburg  and  the  river. 

Something — perhaps  the  approach  of  evening,  perhaps 
the  gloom  of  great  hills  which  make  darksome  valleys 
wherein  lurk  early  shadows  and  cool,  damp  airs ;  perhaps 
the  tinkle  of  cowbells  and  the  lowing  of  homing  herds; 
perhaps  the  presence  of  dooryards  where  laborers  and 
farmers,  newly  returned  from  work,  were  washing  their 
hands  in  pans  outside  of  kitchen  doors ;  or  the  smoke  curl 
of  evening  fires  from  chimneys,  or  the  glint  of  evening 
lamps  through  doors  and  windows — was  very  touching 
about  all  this;  anyhow,  as  we  sped  along  I  was  greatly 
moved.  Life  orchestrates  itself  at  times  so  perfectly. 
It  sings  like  a  prima  donna  of  humble  joys,  and  happy 
homes  and  simple  tasks.  It  creates  like  a  great  virtuoso, 
bow  in  hand,  or  fingers  upon  invisible  keys,  a  supreme 
illusion.  The  heart  hurts ;  one's  eyes  fill  with  tears.  We 
skirted  great  hills  so  close  that  at  times,  as  one  looked  up, 
it  seemed  as  though  they  might  come  crashing  down  on 
us.  We  passed  thick  forests  where  in  this  mid-August 
weather,  one  could  look  into  deep  shadows,  feeling  the 
ancient  childish  terror  of  the  woods  and  of  the  dark.  I 
looked  up  a  cliff  side — very  high  up — and  saw  a  railroad 
station  labeled  MANUNKA-CHUNK.  I  looked  into  a 
barnyard  and  saw  pigs  grunting  over  corn  and  swill,  and 
a  few  chickens  trying  to  flutter  up  into  a  low  tree.  The 
night  was  nigh. 


THE    OLD    ESSEX    AND     MORRIS    CANAL 


ACROSS  THE  DELAWARE  39 

Presently,  in  this  sweet  gloom  we  reached  a  ferry  which 
crosses  the  river  somewhere  near  the  Water  Gap  and 
which  we  were  induced  to  approach  because  we  knew  of 
no  bridge.  On  the  opposite  side,  anchored  to  a  wire 
which  crossed  the  river,  was  a  low  flat  punt,  which  looked 
for  all  the  world  like  a  shallow  saucepan.  We  called 
"Yoho!"  and  back  came  the  answer  "All  right!"  Pres 
ently  the  punt  came  over  and  in  a  silvery  twilight  Speed 
maneuvered  the  car  onto  the  craft.  A  tall,  lank  yokel 
greeted  us. 

"Coin'  to  the  Water  Gap?" 

"Yes,  how  far  is  it?" 

"Seven  miles." 

"What  time  is  it?" 

"Seven  o'clock." 

That  gave  us  an  hour  in  which  to  make  Miss  H 's 

train. 

"That's  Pennsylvania  over  there,  isn't  it?" 

"Yep,  that's  Pennsylvania.  There  ain't  nothing  in 
New  Jersey  'cept  cows  and  mountains." 

He  grinned  as  though  he  had  made  a  great  joke. 

Speed,  as  usual,  was  examining  the  engine.  Franklin 
and  I  were  gazing  enraptured  at  the  stately  hills  which 
sentinel  this  stream.  In  the  distance  was  the  Water  Gap, 
a  great  cleft  in  the  hills  where  in  unrecorded  days  the 
river  is  believed  to  have  cut  its  way  through.  One  could 
see  the  vast  masonry  of  some  bridge  which  had  been  con 
structed  farther  up  the  stream. 

We  clambered  up  the  bank  on  the  farther  side,  the  car 
making  a  great  noise.  In  this  sweet  twilight  with  fireflies 
and  spirals  of  gnats  and  "pinchin'  bugs,"  as  Speed  called 
them,  we  tore  the  remainder  of  the  distance,  the  eyes  of 
the  car  glowing  like  great  flames.  Along  this  river  road 
we  encountered  endless  groups  of  strolling  summer  board 
ers — girls  with  their  arms  about  each  other,  quiescent 
women  and  older  maids  idling  in  the  evening  damp. 

"A  land  of  summer  hotels  this,  and  summer  boarding 
houses,"  I  said. 


40  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

"Those  are  all  old  maids  or  school  teachers,"  insisted 
Speed  with  Indiana  assurance,  "or  I'll  eat  my  hat." 

In  the  midst  of  our  flight  Speed  would  tell  stones, 
tossing  them  back  in  the  wind  and  perfumes.  Miss 

H was  singing  "There  Was  an  Old  Soldier."  In 

no  time  at  all — though  not  before  it  was  dark — we  were 
entering  a  region  compact  of  automobiles,  gasoline 
smoke,  and  half  concealed  hotel  windows  and  balconies 
which  seemed  to  clamber  up  cliffs  and  disappear  into  the 
skies.  Below  us,  under  a  cliff,  ran  a  railroad,  its  freight 
and  passenger  trains  seeming  to  thunder  ominously  near. 
We  were,  as  I  could  see,  high  on  some  embankment  or 
shelf  cut  in  the  hill.  Presently  we  turned  into  a  square 
or  open  space  which  opened  out  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  and 
there  appeared  a  huge  caravansary,  The  Kittatmny,  with 
a  fountain  and  basin  in  the  foreground  which  imitated  the 
colored  waters  of  the  Orient.  Lackeys  were  there  to  take 

our  bags — only,  since  Miss  H had  to  make  her  train, 

we  had  to  go  a  mile  farther  on  to  the  station  under  the 

hill.  To  give  Franklin  and  Miss  H time  Speed 

parked  the  car  somewhere  near  the  station  and  I  went  to 
look  for  colored  picture  cards. 

I  wandered  off  into  a  region  of  lesser  hotels  and  stores 
— the  usual  clutter  of  American  mountain  resort  gayety. 
It  brought  back  to  me  Tannersville  and  Haines  Corners 
in  the  Catskills,  Excelsior  Springs  and  the  Hot  Springs  of 
Virginia  and  the  Ozarks.  American  summer  mountain 
life  is  so  naive,  so  gauche,  so  early  Victorian.  Nothing 
could  be  duller,  safer,  more  commonplace  apparently, 
and  yet  with  such  a  lilt  running  through  it,  than  this  scene. 
Here  were  windows  of  restaurants  or  ball  rooms  or  hotel 
promenades,  all  opened  to  the  cool  mountain  air  and  all 
gaily  lighted.  An  orchestra  was  to  be  heard  crooning 
here  and  there.  The  one  street  was  full  of  idlers,  sum 
mer  cottagers,  hotel  guests,  the  natives — promenading. 
Many  electric  lamps  cast  hard  shadows  provided  by  the 
trees.  It  was  all  so  delightfully  cool  and  fragrant.  All 
these  maidens  were  so  bent  on  making  catches,  appar 
ently,  so  earnest  to  attract  attention.  They  were  decked 


ACROSS  THE  DELAWARE  41 

out  in  all  the  fineries  and  fripperies  of  the  American  sum 
mer  resort  scene.  I  never  saw  more  diaphanous  draper 
ies — more  frail  pinks,  blues,  yellows,  creams.  All  the 
brows  of  all  the  maidens  seemed  to  be  be-ribboned.  All 
the  shoulders  were  flung  about  with  light  gauzy  shawls. 
Noses  were  powdered,  lips  faintly  rouged,  perhaps.  The 
air  was  vibrant  with  a  kind  of  mating  note — or  search. 

"Well,  well,"  I  exclaimed,  and  bought  me  all  the  truly 
indicative  postcards  I  could  find. 


CHAPTER   VI 

AN  AMERICAN  SUMMER  RESORT 

I  HAVE  no  quarrel  with  American  summer  resorts  as 
such — they  are  as  good  as  any — but  I  must  confess  that 
scenes  like  this  do  not  move  me  as  they  once  did.  I  can 
well  recall  the  time — and  that  not  so  many  years  ago — 
when  this  one  would  have  set  me  tingling,  left  me  yearn 
ing  with  a  voiceless,  indescribable  pain.  Life  does  such 
queer  things  to  one.  It  takes  one's  utmost  passions  of 
five  years  ago  and  puts  them  out  like  a  spent  fire.  Stand 
ing  in  this  almost  operatic  street,  I  did  my  best  to  con 
trast  my  feelings  with  those  of  twenty,  fifteen  and  even 
ten  years  before.  What  had  come  over  the  spirit  of  my 
dreams?  Well,  twenty  years  before  I  knew  nothing 
about  love,  actually — ten  years  before  I  was  not  satisfied. 
Was  that  it?  Not  exactly — no — I  could  not  say  that  it 
was.  But  now  at  least  these  maidens  and  this  somewhat 
banal  stage  setting  were  not  to  be  accepted  by  me,  at 
least,  at  the  value  which  unsophistication  and  youth  place 
on  them.  The  scene  was  gay  and  lovely  and  innocent 
really.  One  could  feel  the  wonder  of  it.  But  the  stage 
craft  was  a  little  too  obvious. 

Fifteen  years  before  (or  even  ten)  these  gauche  maid 
ens  idling  along  would  have  seemed  most  fascinating. 
Now  the  brow  bands  and  diaphanous  draperies  and  pink 
and  blue  and  green  slippers  were  almost  like  trite  stage 
properties.  Fifteen  or  twenty  years  before  I  would  have 
been  ready  to  exclaim  with  any  of  the  hundred  youths  I 
saw  bustling  about  here,  yearning  with  their  eyes :  "Oh, 
my  goddess!  Oh,  my  Venus!  Oh,  my  perfect  divinity! 
But  deign  to  cast  one  encouraging  glance  upon  me,  your 
devoted  slave,  and  I  will  grovel  at  your  feet.  Here  is 
my  heart  and  hand  and  my  most  sacred  vow — and  my 

42 


AN  AMERICAN  SUMMER  RESORT        43 

pocket  book.  I  will  work  for  you,  slave  for  you,  die  for 
you.  Every  night  for  the  next  two  thousand  nights  of 
my  life,  all  my  life  in  fact,  I  will  come  home  regularly 
from  my  small  job  and  place  all  my  earnings  and  hopes 
and  fears  in  your  hands.  I  will  build  a  house  and  I  will 
run  a  store.  I  will  do  anything  to  make  you  happy.  We 
will  have  three,  seven,  nine  children.  I  will  spade  a  gar 
den  each  spring,  bring  home  a  lawnmower  and  cut  the 
grass.  I  will  prove  thoroughly  domesticated  and  never 
look  at  another  woman." 

That,  in  my  nonage,  was  the  way  I  used  to  feel. 

And  as  I  looked  about  me  I  could  see  much  the  same 
emotions  at  work  here.  These  young  cubs — how  enrap 
tured  they  were;  how  truly  like  young  puppies  with  still 
blinded  eyes !  The  air  was  redolent  of  this  illusion.  That 
was  why  the  windows  and  balconies  were  hung  with  Jap 
anese  lanterns.  That  was  why  the  orchestras  were  play 
ing  so — divinely!  To  me  now  it  tanged  rather  hollowly 
at  moments,  like  a  poor  show.  I  couldn't  help  seeing  that 
the  maidens  weren't  divinities  at  all,  that  most  of  them 
were  the  dullest,  most  selfish,  most  shallow  and  strawy 
mannikinesses  one  could  expect  to  find.  Poor  little  half- 
equipped  actors  and  actresses. 

"But  even  so,"  I  said  to  myself,  "this  is  the  best  the 
master  of  the  show  has  to  offer.  He  is  at  most  a  strolling 
player  of  limited  equipment.  Perhaps  elsewhere,  in  some 
other  part  of  the  universe,  there  may  be  a  showman  who 
can  do  better,  who  has  a  bigger,  better  company.  But 
these " 

I  returned  to  the  hotel  and  waited  for  Franklin.  We 
were  assigned  a  comfortable  room  on  the  second  or  third 
floor,  I  forget  which,  down  a  mile  of  corridor.  Supper 
in  the  grill  cost  us  five  dollars.  The  next  morning  break 
fast  in  the  Persian  breakfast  room  cost  us  three  more. 
But  that  evening  we  had  the  privilege  of  sitting  on  a  bal 
cony  and  watching  a  herd  of  deer  come  down  to  a  wire 
fence  and  eat  grass  in  the  glare  of  an  adjacent  arc  light. 
We  had  the  joy  of  observing  the  colored  fountains 
(quenched  at  twelve)  and  seeing  the  motoring  parties 


44  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

come  tearing  up  or  go  flying  past,  wild  with  a  nameless 
gayety.  In  the  parlors,  the  music  rooms,  the  miles  of 
promenade  balconies,  were  hosts  of  rich  mammas  and 
daughters — the  former  nearly  all  fat,  the  latter  all  prom 
ising  to  be,  and  a  little  gross.  For  the  life  of  me  I  could 
not  help  but  think  of  breweries,  distilleries,  soap  fac 
tories,  furniture  factories,  stove  companies  and  the  like. 
Where  did  all  these  people  come  from?  Where  did  they 
all  get  the  money  to  stay  here  weeks  and  weeks  at  six, 
eight,  and  even  fifteen  and  twenty  a  day  a  person?  Our 
poor  little  six  dollar  rooms!  Good  Heavens!  Some  of 
them  had  suites  with  three  baths.  Think  of  all  the  fac 
tories,  the  purpose  of  which  (aside  from  supplying  the 
world  with  washtubs,  flatirons,  sealing  wax,  etc.)  was  to 
supply  these  elderly  and  youthful  females  with  plumpness 
and  fine  raiment. 

While  we  were  in  the  grill  eating  our  rather  late  din 
ner  (the  Imperial  Egyptian  dining  room  was  closed), 
several  families  strolled  in,  "pa,"  in  one  case,  a  frail,  pale, 
meditative,  speculative  little  man  who  seemed  about  as 
much  at  home  in  his  dressy  cutaway  coat  as  a  sheep  would 
in  a  lion's  skin.  He  was  so  very  small  and  fidgety,  but 
had  without  doubt  built  up  a  wholesale  grocery  or  an  iron 
foundry  or  something  of  that  sort.  And  "ma"  was  so 
short  and  aggressive,  with  such  a  firm  chin  and  such 
steady  eyes.  "Ma"  had  supplied  "pa"  with  much  of  his 
fighting  courage,  you  could  see  that.  As  I  looked  at  "pa" 
I  wondered  how  many  thousand  things  he  had  been 
driven  to  do  to  escape  her  wrath,  even  to  coming  up  here 
in  August  and  wearing  a  cutaway  coat  and  a  stiff  white 
shirt  and  hard  cuffs  and  collars.  He  did  look  as  though 
he  would  prefer  some  quiet  ismall  town  veranda  and  his 
daily  newspaper. 

And  then  there  was  "Cerise"  or  "Muriel"  or  "Alber- 
tina"  (I  am  sure  she  had  some  such  name) ,  sitting  between 
her  parents  and  obviously  speculating  as  to  her  fate. 
Back  at  Wilson's  Corner  there  may  have  been  some  youth 
at  some  time  or  other  who  thought  her  divine  and  im- 


AN  AMERICAN  SUMMER  RESORT        45 

plored  her  to  look  with  favor  on  his  suit,  but  behold  "pa" 
was  getting  rich  and  she  was  not  for  such  as  him. 

"Jus'  you  let  him  be,"  I  could  hear  her  mother  coun 
seling.  "Don't  you  have  anything  to  do  with  him.  We're 
getting  on  and  next  summer  we're  going  up  to  the  Kitta- 
tinny.  You're  sure  to  meet  somebody  there." 

And  so  here  they  were — Cerise  dressed  in  the  best 
that  Scranton  or  Wilkes-Barre  or  even  New  York  could 
afford.  Such  organdies,  voiles,  Swisses,  silk  crepes — 
trunks  full  of  them,  no  doubt!  Her  plump  arms  were 
quite  bare,  shoulders  partly  so,  her  hair  done  in  a  novel 
way,  white  satin  shoes  were  on  her  feet — oh  dear!  oh 
dear!  She  looked  dull  and  uninteresting  and  meaty. 

But  think  of  Harvey  Anstruther  Kupfermacher,  son 
of  the  celebrated  trunk  manufacturer  of  Punxsutawney, 
who  will  shortly  arrive  and  wed  her!  It  will  be  a  "love 
match  from  the  first."  The  papers  of  Troy,  Schenectady, 
and  Utica  will  be  full  of  it.  There  will  be  a  grand 
church  wedding.  The  happy  couple  will  summer  in  the 
Adirondacks  or  the  Blue  Ridge.  If  the  trunk  factory 
and  the  iron  foundry  continue  successful  some  day  they 
may  even  venture  New  York. 

"Wilson's  Corner?    Well  I  guess  not!" 

There  was  another  family,  the  pater  f amilias  large  and 
heavy,  with  big  hands,  big  feet,  a  bursting  pink  complex 
ion,  and  a  vociferous  grey  suit.  "Pa"  leads  his  proces 
sion.  "Ma"  is  very  simple,  and  daughter  is  compara 
tively  interesting,  and  rather  sweet.  "Pa"  is  going  to 
show  by  living  at  the  Kittatinny  what  it  means  to  work 
hard  and  save  your  money  and  fight  the  labor  unions  and 
push  the  little  fellow  to  the  wall.  "Pa"  thinks,  actually, 
that  if  he  gets  very  rich — richer  and  richer — somehow 
he  is  going  to  be  supremely  happy.  Money  is  going  to 
do  it.  "Yessiree,  money  can  do  anything,  good  old  Amer 
ican  dollars.  Money  can  build  a  fine  house,  money  can 
buy  a  fine  auto,  money  can  give  one  a  splendid  office  desk, 
money  can  hire  obsequious  factotums,  money  can  make 
everyone  pleasant  and  agreeable.  Here  I  sit,"  says  Pa, 
"right  in  the  grill  room  of  the  Kittatinny.  Outside  are 


46  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

colored  fountains.  My  shoes  are  new.  My  clothes  are 
of  the  best.  I  have  an  auto.  What  do  I  lack?" 

uNot  a  thing,  Pa,"  I  wanted  to  answer,  "save  certain 
delicacies  of  perception,  which  you  will  never  miss." 

1  'Soul,  take  thine  ease ;  eat,  drink  and  be  merry.' ' 

The  next  morning  we  were  up  bright  and  early  for  a 
long  drive.  Owing  to  my  bumptiousness  in  having  set 
aside  the  regular  route  of  the  trip  I  could  see  that  Frank 
lin  was  now  somewhat  depending  on  me  to  complete  my 
career  as  a  manager  and  decide  when  and  where  to  go. 
My  sole  idea  was  to  cut  direct  through  Pennsylvania,  but 
when  I  consulted  a  large  map  which  hung  on  the  wall  of 
the  baggage  room  of  the  Kittatinny  I  was  not  so  sure. 
It  was  about  six  feet  long  and  two  feet  high  and  showed 
nothing  but  mountains,  mountains,  mountains,  and  no 
towns,  let  alone  cities  of  any  size.  We  began  to  speculate 
concerning  Pennsylvania  as  a  state,  but  meanwhile  I  con 
sulted  our  "Scenic  Route"  map.  This  led  us  but  a  little 
way  into  Pennsylvania  before  it  cut  due  north  to  Bing- 
hamton,  and  the  socalled  "good  roads"  of  New  York 
State.  That  did  not  please  me  at  all.  At  any  rate,  after 
consulting  with  a  most  discouraging  porter  who  seemed 
to  be  sure  that  there  were  no  good  roads  in  Pennsylvania, 
I  consoled  myself  with  the  thought  that  Wilkes-Barre 
and  Scranton  were  west  of  us,  and  that  the  "Scenic  Route" 
led  through  these  places.  We  might  go  to  Wilkes-Barre 
or  Scranton  and  then  consult  with  the  local  automobile 
association,  who  could  give  us  further  information. 
Quite  diplomatically  I  persuaded  Franklin  to  do  that. 

The  difficulty  with  this  plan  was  that  it  left  us  worry 
ing  over  roads,  for,  after  all,  the  best  machine,  as  anyone 
knows  who  has  traveled  much  by  automobiles,  is  a  deli 
cate  organism.  Given  good  roads  it  can  seemingly  roll 
on  forever  at  top  speed.  Enter  on  a  poor  one  and  all  the 
ills  that  flesh  or  machinery  is  heir  to  seem  at  once  to  mani 
fest  themselves.  A  little  mud  and  water  and  you  are  in 
danger  of  skidding  into  kingdom  come.  A  few  ruts  and 
you  feel  momentarily  as  though  you  were  going  to  be 


AN  AMERICAN  SUMMER  RESORT        47 

thrown  into  high  heaven.  A  bad  patch  of  rocks  and  holes 
and  you  soon  discover  where  all  the  weak  places  in  your 
bones  and  muscles  are.  Punctures  eventuate  from  no 
where.  Blowouts  arrive  one  after  another  with  sickening 
frequency.  The  best  of  engines  snort  and  growl  on  sharp 
grades.  Going  down  a  steep  hill  a  three-thousand-pound 
car  makes  you  think  always — "My  God!  what  if  some 
thing  should  break!"  Then  a  spring  may  snap,  a  screw 
work  loose  somewhere. 

But  before  we  left  the  Water  Gap  what  joys  of  obser 
vation  were  not  mine!  This  was  such  an  idle  tour  and 
such  idle  atmosphere.  There  was  really  no  great  need 
for  hurry,  as  we  realized  once  we  got  started,  and  I  was 
desirous  of  taking  our  time,  as  was  Franklin,  though  hav 
ing  no  wish  to  stay  long  anywhere.  We  breakfasted 
leisurely  while  Speed,  somewhere,  was  doctoring  up  our 
tires.  Then  we  strolled  out  into  this  summer  village, 
seeing  the  Water  Cappers  get  abroad  thus  early.  The 
town  looked  as  kempt  by  day  as  it  did  by  night.  Our  fat 
visitors  of  heavy  purses  were  still  in  bed  in  the  great 
hotels.  Instead  you  saw  the  small  town  American  busy 
about  his  chores;  an  ancient  dame,  for  instance,  in  black 
bonnet  and  shawl,  driving  a  lean  horse  and  buggy,  the 
latter  containing  three  milk  cans  all  labeled  "Sunset  Farm 
Dairy  Co.";  a  humpnosed,  thinbodied,  angular  grocer, 
or  general  store  keeper,  sweeping  off  his  sidewalk  and 
dusting  off  his  counters;  various  citizens  in  "vests"  and 
shirt  sleeves  crossing  the  heavily  oiled  roads  at  various 
angles  and  exchanging  the  customary  American  morning 
greetings: 

"Howdy,  Jake?" 

"Hi,  Si,  been  down  t'  the  barn  yet?" 

"Did  Ed  get  that  wrench  he  was  lookin'  for?" 

"Think  so,  yep." 

"Well,  look  at  old  Skeeter  Cheevers  comin'  along,  will 
yuh" — this  last  apropos  of  some  hobbling  septuagenarian 
with  a  willow  basket. 

I  heaved  a  kind  of  sigh  of  relief.     I  was  out  of  New 


48  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

York  and  back  home,  as  it  were — even  here  at  the  Dela 
ware  River — so  near  does  the  west  come  to  the  east. 

Sitting  in  willow  chairs  in  front  of  a  garage  where 
Speed  was  looking  for  a  special  kind  of  oil  which  evi 
dently  the  more  pretentious  hotel  could  not  or  would  not 
supply,  Franklin  and  I  discussed  the  things  we  had  heard 
and  seen.  I  think  I  drew  a  parallel  between  this  hotel 
here  and  similar  hotels  at  Monte  Carlo  and  Nice,  where 
the  prices  would  be  no  higher,  if  so  high. 

It  so  happened  that  in  the  morning,  when  I  had  been 
dressing,  there  had  been  a  knocking  at  the  door  of  the 
next  room,  and  listening  I  had  heard  a  man's  voice  calling 
uMa!  Ma!  Have  you  got  an  undershirt  in  there 
for  me?" 

I  looked  out  to  see  a  tall,  greyheaded  man  of  sixty 
or  more,  very  intelligent  and  very  forceful  looking,  a  real 
American  business  chief. 

"Yes,"  came  the  answer  after  a  moment.  "Wait  a 
minute.  I  think  there's  one  in  Ida's  satchel.  Is  Harry 
up  yet?" 

"Yes,  he's  gone  out." 

This  was  at  six  A.  M.  Here  stood  the  American  in 
the  pretentious  hall,  his  suspenders  down,  meekly  impor 
tuning  his  wife  through  the  closed  door. 

Imagine  this  at  Nice,  or  Cannes,  or  Trouville ! 

And  then  the  lackadaisical  store  keeper  where  I  bought 
my  postcards. 

"Need  any  stamps,  cap?"  was  his  genial  inquiry. 

Why  the  "cap"?  An  American  civility — the  equiva 
lent  of  Mister,  Monsieur,  Sir, — anything  you  please. 

I  had  of  late  been  reading  much  magazine  sociology 
of  the  kind  that  is  labeled  "The  Menace  of  Immigration," 
etc.  I  was  saying  to  Franklin  that  I  had  been  fast  coming 
to  believe  that  America,  east,  west,  north,  and  south,  was 
being  overrun  by  foreigners  who  were  completely  chang 
ing  the  American  character,  the  American  facial  appear 
ance,  the  American  everything.  Do  you  recall  the  Hans 
Christian  Andersen  story  of  the  child  who  saw  the  king 
naked?  I  was  inclined  to  be  that  child.  I  could  not  see, 


AN  AMERICAN  SUMMER  RESORT        49 

from  the  first  hundred  miles  or  so  we  had  traveled,  that 
there  was  any  truth  in  the  assertions  of  these  magazine 
sociologists.  Franklin  and  I  agreed  that  we  could  see  no 
change  in  American  character  here,  or  anywhere,  though 
it  might  be  well  to  look  sharply  into  this  matter  as  we 
went  along.  In  the  cities  there  were  thousands  of  for 
eigners,  but  they  were  not  unamericanizing  the  cities, 
and  I  was  not  prepared  to  believe  that  they  are  doing  any 
worse  by  the  small  towns.  Certainly  there  was  no  evi 
dence  of  it  here  at  the  Water  Gap.  All  was  almost  "of 
fensively  American/'  as  an  Englishman  would  say.  The 
"caps,"  "docs/'  and  "howdys"  were  as  common  here  as 
in — Indiana,  for  instance — so  Franklin  seemed  to  think 
— and  he  lives  in  Indiana  a  goodly  part  of  the  year.  In 
the  Water  Gap  and  Stroudsburg,  and  various  towns  here 
about  where,  because  of  the  various  summer  hotels  and 
cottages,  one  might  expect  a  sprinkling  of  the  foreign  ele 
ment,  at  least  in  the  capacity  of  servitors,  in  the  streets 
and  stores,  yet  they  were  not  even  noticeably  dotted  with 
them.  If  all  that  was  American  is  being  wiped  out  the 
tide  had  not  yet  reached  northern  New  Jersey  or  eastern 
Pennsylvania.  I  began  to  take  heart. 


CHAPTER    VII 

THE    PENNSYLVANIANS 

AND  then  there  was  this  matter  of  Pennsylvania  and 
its  rumored  poor  roads  to  consider,  and  the  smallness 
and  non-celebrity  of  its  population,  considering  the  vast- 
ness  of  its  territory — all  of  which  consumed  at  least  an 
hour  of  words,  once  we  were  started.  This  matter  inter 
ested  us  greatly,  for  now  that  we  had  come  to  think  of  it 
we  could  not  recall  anyone  in  American  political  history 
or  art  or  science  who  had  come  from  Pennsylvania. 
William  Penn  (a  foreigner)  occurred  to  me,  Benjamin 
Franklin  and  a  certain  Civil  War  governor  of  the  name 
of  Cameron,  and  there  I  stuck.  Certain  financial  geniuses, 
as  Franklin  was  quick  to  point  out,  had  made  money 
there;  a  Carnegie,  Scotchman;  Frick,  an  American; 
Widener,  an  American;  Dolan,  an  Irishman;  Elkins,  and 
others;  although,  as  we  both  agreed,  America  could  not 
be  vastly  proud  of  these.  The  taint  of  greed  or  graft 
seemed  to  hang  heavy  in  their  wake. 

uBut  where  are  the  poets,  writers,  painters?"  asked 
Franklin. 

I  paused.     Not  a  name  occurred  to  me. 

"What  Pennsylvanian  ever  did  anything?"  I  asked. 
"Here  is  a  state  one  hundred  and  sixty  miles  wide,  and 
more  than  three  hundred  miles  long  from  east  to  west, 
and  with  five  or  six  fair-sized  cities  in  it,  and  not  a  name !" 
We  tried  to  explain  it  on  the  ground  that  mountainous 
countries  are  never  prolific  of  celebrities,  but  neither  of  us 
seemed  to  know  very  much  about  mountainous  countries, 
and  so  we  finally  dropped  the  subject. 

But  what  about  Pennsylvania,  anyhow?  Why  hasn't 
it  produced  anything  in  particular?  How  many  millions 
of  men  must  live  and  die  before  a  real  figure  arises?  Or 
do  we  need  figures?  Are  just  men  better? 

50 


THE  PENNSYLVANIANS  51 

The  run  from  the  Water  Gap  to  Factoryville  was  ac 
complished  under  varying  conditions.  The  day  promised 
to  be  fine,  a  milky,  hazy  atmosphere  which  was  still  warm 
and  bright  like  an  opal.  We  were  all  in  the  best  of  spirits, 
Speed  whistling  gaily  to  himself  as  we  raced  along.  Our 
way  led  first  through  a  string  of  small  towns  set  in  great 
hills  or  mountains — Stroudsburg,  Bartonsville,  Tanners- 
ville,  Swiftwater.  We  were  trying  to  make  up  our  minds 
as  we  rode  whether  we  would  cut  Wilkes-Barre,  since, 
according  to  our  map,  it  appeared  to  be  considerably 
south  of  a  due  west  course,  or  whether,  because  of  its 
repute  as  a  coal  center,  we  would  go  there.  Something, 
a  sense  of  mountains  and  picturesque  valleys,  lured  me 
on.  I  was  for  going  to  Wilkes-Barre  if  it  took  us  as 
much  as  fifty  miles  out  of  our  course. 

But  meanwhile  our  enjoyment  in  seeing  Pennsylvania 
was  such  that  we  did  not  need  to  worry  very  much  over 
its  lack  of  human  distinction.  Everything  appeared  to  be 
beautiful  to  such  casual  travelers.  As  we  climbed  and 
climbed  out  of  the  Water  Gap,  we  felt  a  distinct  change 
between  the  life  of  New  Jersey  and  that  of  this  hilly, 
almost  mountainous  land.  Great  slopes  rose  on  either 
hand.  We  came  upon  long  stretches  of  woodland  and 
barren,  rocky  fields.  The  country  houses  from  here  to 
Wilkes-Barre,  which  we  finally  reached,  were  by  no  means 
so  prosperous.  Stroudsburg  seemed  a  stringy,  mountain- 
top  town,  composed  principally  of  summer  hotels,  facing 
the  principal  street,  hotels  and  boarding  houses.  Bar 
tonsville  and  Tannersville,  both  much  smaller,  were  much 
the  same.  The  air  was  much  lighter  here,  almost  feath 
ery  compared  to  that  of  the  lowlands  farther  east.  But 
the  barns  and  houses  and  stock  were  so  poor.  At  Swift- 
water,  another  small  town  or  crossroads,  we  came  to  a 
wood  so  dense,  so  deep,  so  black  and  even  purple  in  its 
shades  that  we  exclaimed  in  surprise.  The  sun  was  still 
shining  in  its  opalescent  way,  but  in  here  was  a  wonder  of 
rare  darks  and  solitudes  which  seemed  like  the  depths 
of  some  untenanted  cathedral  at  nightfall.  And  there 
was  a  river  or  stream  somewhere  nearby,  for  stopping  the 


52  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

car  we  could  hear  it  tumbling  over  rough  stones.  We 
dismounted,  quite  spontaneously,  and  without  any  ushall 
we's,"  and  wandered  into  this  bit  of  forest  which  was 
such  a  splendid  natural  wonder.  Under  these  heavy 
cedars  and  tangled  vines  all  was  still,  save  for  the  river, 
and  at  the  foot  of  trees,  in  a  mulch  of  rich  earth,  were 
growing  whole  colonies  of  Indian  pipes,  those  rare  fra 
gile,  waxylooking  orchids.  Neither  Franklin  nor  Speed 
had  ever  seen  any  and  I  aired  my  knowledge  with  great 
gusto.  Speed  was  quite  taken  aback  by  the  fact  that  they 
really  looked  like  pipes  with  a  small  fire  in  their  bowls. 
We  sat  down — it  was  too  wonderful  to  leave  instantly.  I 
felt  that  I  must  come  back  here  some  time  and  camp. 

It  was  about  here  that  our  second  blowout  occurred. 
Back  in  Stroudsburg,  passing  through  the  principal  street, 
I  had  spied  a  horseshoe  lying  in  the  road — a  new  shoe — 
and  jumped  out  to  get  it  as  a  sign  of  good  luck.  For  this 
I  was  rewarded  by  an  indulgent  glance  from  Franklin  and 
considerable  show  of  sympathetic  interest  from  Speed. 
The  latter  obviously  shared  my  belief  in  horseshoes  as 
omens  of  good  fortune.  He  promptly  hung  it  over  the 
speedometer,  but  alas,  within  the  next  three-quarters  of 
an  hour  this  first  breakdown  occurred.  Speed  was  just 
saying  that  now  he  was  sure  he  would  get  through  safely, 
and  I  was  smiling  comfortably  to  think  that  my  life  was 
thus  charmingly  guarded,  when  "wheel" — have  you 
heard  a  whistle  blowout?  It  sounds  like  a  spent  bullet 
instead  of  a  revolver  shot.  Out  we  climbed  to  contem 
plate  a  large  jagged  rent  in  the  rim  of  the  tire  and  the 
los<s  of  fifteen  minutes.  This  rather  dampened  my  ardor 
for  my  omen.  Luck  signs  and  omens  are  rather  difficult 
things  at  best,  for  one  can  really  never  connect  the  result 
with  the  fact.  I  have  the  most  disturbing  difficulties  with 
my  luck  signs.  A  cross-eyed  man  or  boy  should  mean 
immediate  good  luck,  but  alas,  I  have  seen  scores  and 
scores  of  cross-eyed  boys  at  one  time  and  another  and 
yet  my  life  seemed  to  go  on  no  better  than  usual.  Cross 
eyed  women  should  spell  immediate  disaster,  but  to  my 
intense  satisfaction  I  am  able  to  report  that  this  does 


THE  PENNSYLVANIANS  53 

not  seem  to  be  invariably  true.  Then  Franklin  and  I  sat 
back  in  the  cushions  and  began  to  discuss  blowouts  in 
general  and  the  mystic  power  of  mind  to  control  such 
matters — the  esoteric  or  metaphysical  knowledge  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  evil  and  that  blowouts  really 
cannot  occur. 

This  brings  me  again  to  Christian  Science,  which  some 
how  hung  over  this  whole  tour,  not  so  much  as  a  relig 
ious  irritant  as  a  pleasant  safeguard.  It  wasn't  religious 
or  obtrusive  at  all.  Franklin,  as  I  have  said,  is  inclined 
to  believe  that  there  is  no  evil,  though  he  is  perfectly 
willing  to  admit  that  the  material  appearances  seem  all 
against  that  assumption  at  times. 

"It's  a  curious  thing,"  he  said  to  me  and  Speed,  "but 
that  makes  the  fifth  blowout  to  occur  in  that  particular 
wheel.  All  the  trouble  we  have  had  this  spring  and  sum 
mer  has  been  in  that  particular  corner  of  the  wagon.  I 
don't  understand  it  quite.  It  isn't  because  we  have  been 
using  poor  tires  on  that  wheel  or  any  other.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  I  put  a  set  of  new  Silvertown  cord  tires  on  the 
wheels  last  May.  It's  just  that  particular  wheel." 

He  gazed  meditatively  at  the  serene  hills  around  us, 
and  I  volunteered  that  it  might  be  "just  accident."  I 
could  see  by  Franklin's  face  that  he  considered  it  a  lesion 
in  the  understanding  of  truth. 

"It  may  be,"  he  said.     "Still  you'll  admit  it's  a  little 


curious." 


A  little  later  on  we  ran  on  to  a  wonderful  tableland, 
high  up  in  the  mountains,  where  were  a  lake,  a  golf  course, 
a  perfect  macadam  road,  and  interesting  inns  and  cot 
tages — quite  like  an  ideal  suburban  section  of  a  great  city. 
As  we  neared  a  four  corners  or  railway  station  center  I 
spied  there  one  of  those  peculiarly  constructed  wagons  in 
tended  originally  to  haul  hay,  latterly  to  convey  straw- 
ride  parties  around  the  country  in  mountain  resorts — a 
diversion  which  seems  never  to  lose  its  charm  for  the 
young.  This  one,  or  rather  three,  for  there  turned  out  to 
be  three  in  a  row,  was  surrounded  by  a  great  group  of 
young  girls,  as  I  thought,  all  of  them  in  short  skirts  and 


54  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

with  a  sort  of  gymnasium  costume  which  seemed  to  indi 
cate  that  they  were  going  out  to  indulge  in  outdoor  ex 
ercises. 

As  we  drew  nearer  we  discovered,  however,  to  our  as 
tonishment,  that  a  fair  proportion  were  women  over  forty 
or  fifty.  It  seemed  more  like  a  school  with  many  moni 
tors  than  a  mountain  outing. 

Contemplating  this  very  modern  show  of  arms  and 
legs,  I  felt  that  we  had  come  a  very  long  way  from  the 
puritanic  views  of  the  region  in  which  I  had  been  raised 
if  an  inland  summer  resort  permitted  this  freedom  of 
appearance.  In  my  day  the  idea  of  any  woman,  young 
or  old,  save  those  under  fourteen,  permitting  anything 
more  than  their  shoe  tip  and  ankles  to  be  seen  was  not 
to  be  thought  of.  And  here  were  mothers  and  spinsters 
of  forty  and  fifty  as  freely  garbed  as  any  bather  at  a  sum 
mer  resort. 

Speed  and  Franklin  and  myself  were  fascinated  by  the 
spectacle.  There  was  a  general  store  near  at  hand  and 
Franklin  went  to  buy  some  chocolate.  Speed  sat  upright 
at  his  wheel  and  curled  his  mustachios.  I  leaned  back 
and  endeavored  to  pick  out  the  most  beautiful  of  the 
younger  ones.  It  was  a  difficult  task.  There  were  many 
beauties. 

By  this  spectacle  we  were  led  to  discuss  for  a  few  mo 
ments  whether  sex — the  tendency  to  greater  freedom  of 
relationship  between  men  and  women — was  taking 
America  or  the  world  in  an  unsatisfactory  direction. 
There  had  been  so  much  talk  on  the  subject  of  late  in  the 
newspapers  and  elsewhere  that  I  could  not  resist  sounding 
Franklin  as  to  his  views.  "Are  we  getting  better  or 
worse?"  I  inquired. 

"Oh,  better,"  he  replied  with  the  air  of  one  who  has 
given  the  matter  a  great  deal  of  thought.  "I  cannot  feel 
that  there  is  any  value  in  repression,  or  certainly  very 
little.  Life  as  it  appeals  to  me  is  a  flowering  out,  not  a 
recession.  If  it  is  flowering  it  is  becoming  richer,  fuller, 
freer.  I  can  see  no  harm  in  those  girls  showing  their  legs 
or  in  peoples'  bodies  coming  into  greater  and  greater 


THE  PENNSYLVANIANS  55 

evidence.  It  seems  to  me  it  will  make  for  a  kind  of  nat 
ural  innocence  after  a  while.  The  mystery  will  be  taken 
out  of  sex  and  only  the  natural  magnetism  left.  I  never 
see  boys  bathing  naked  in  the  water  but  what  I  wish  we 
could  all  go  naked  if  the  climate  would  only  permit." 
And  then  he  told  me  about  a  group  of  boys  in  Carmel 
whom  he  had  once  seen  on  a  rainy  day  racing  naked  upon 
the  backs  of  some  horses  about  a  field  near  their  swim 
ming  hole,  their  white,  rain-washed  bodies  under  lower 
ing  clouds  making  them  look  like  centaurs  and  fawns. 
Personally  I  follow  life,  or  like  to,  with  a  hearty  enthusi 
asm  wherever  it  leads. 

As  we  were  talking,  it  began  to  rain,  and  we  de 
cided  to  drive  on  more  speedily.  A  few  miles  back,  after 
some  cogitation  at  a  crossroads,  we  had  decided  to  take 
the  road  to  Wilkes-Barre.  I  shall  never  feel  grateful 
enough  for  our  decision,  though  for  a  time  it  looked  as 
though  we  had  made  a  serious  mistake.  After  a  time 
the  fine  macadam  road  ended  and  we  took  to  a  poorer 
and  finally  a  rutty  dirt  road.  The  grades  became 
steeper  and  steeper — more  difficult  to  ascend  and  de 
scend.  In  a  valley  near  a  bounding  stream — Stoddarts- 
ville  the  place  was — we  had  another  blowout — or  some 
thing  which  caused  a  flat  tire,  in  the  same  right  rear 
wheel;  and  this  time  in  a  driving  rain.  We  had  to  get 
out  and  help  spread  tools  in  the  wet  road  and  hunt  leaks 
in  the  rubber  rim.  When  this  was  repaired  and  the 
chains  put  on  the  wheels  we  proceeded,  up  hill  and  down 
dale,  past  miles  of  apparently  tenantless  woods  and  rocky 
fields — on  and  on  in  search  of  Wilkes-Barre.  We  had 
concluded  from  our  maps  and  some  signs  that  it  must 
be  about  thirtysix  miles  farther.  As  it  turned  out  it  was 
nearly  seventy.  The  roads  had  a  tendency  to  curve  down 
wards  on  each  side  into  treacherous  hollows,  and  as  I 
had  recently  read  of  an  automobile  skidding  on  one  of 
these,  overturning  and  killing  three  people,  I  was  not  very 
giddy  about  the  prospect.  Even  with  the  chains  the 
machine  was  skidding  and  our  able  driver  kept  his  eye 
fixed  on  the  road.  I  never  saw  a  man  pay  more  minute 


56  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

attention  to  his  wheel  nor  work  harder  to  keep  his  ma 
chine  evenly  balanced.  A  good  chauffeur  is  a  jewel,  and 
Speed  was  one. 

But  this  ride  had  other  phases  than  a  mere  bad  road. 
The  clouds  were  so  lowery  and  the  rain  so  heavy  that  for 
a  part  of  the  way  we  had  to  have  the  storm  curtains  on. 
We  could  see  that  it  was  a  wonderful  country  that  we 
were  traversing,  deliciously  picturesque,  but  a  sopping 
rain  makes  one's  spirits  droop.  Franklin  sat  in  his  corner 
and  I  in  mine  with  scarcely  a  word.  Speed  complained  at 
times  that  we  were  not  making  more  than  four  miles  an 
hour.  I  began  to  calculate  how  long  it  would  take  to 
get  to  Indiana  at  that  rate.  Franklin  began  to  wonder 
if  we  were  not  making  a  mistake  trying  to  cut  straight 
across  the  poorly  equipped  state  of  Pennsylvania. 

"Perhaps  it  would  have  been  better  after  all  if  we  had 
gone  up  the  Hudson." 

I  felt  like  a  criminal  trying  to  wreck  a  three  thousand 
dollar  car. 

But  beyond  a  place  called  Bear  Creek  things  seemed  to 
get  better.  This  was  a  town  in  a  deep  ravine  with  a  rail 
road  and  a  thundering  stream,  plunging  over  a  waterfall. 
The  houses  were  charming.  It  seemed  as  if  many  well- 
to-do  people  must  live  here,  for  the  summer  anyhow. 
But  when  we  asked  for  food  no  one  seemed  to  have  any. 
"Better  go  to  Wilkes-Barre,"  advised  the  local  inn 
keeper.  "It's  only  fifteen  miles."  At  four  miles  an  hour 
we  would  be  there  in  four  hours. 

Out  we  started.  The  rain  ceased  for  a  time,  though 
the  clouds  hung  low,  and  we  took  up  the  storm  curtains. 
It  was  now  nearly  two  o'clock  and  by  three  it  was  plain 
we  were  nearing  Wilkes-Barre.  The  roads  were  better; 
various  railroads  running  in  great  cuts  came  into  view. 
We  met  miners  with  bright  tin  buckets,  their  faces  as  black 
as  coal,  their  caps  ornamented  with  their  small  lamps. 
There  were  troops  of  foreign  women  and  poorly  clad 
children  carrying  buckets  to  or  from  the  mines.  Turning 
a  corner  of  the  road  we  came  suddenly  upon  one  of  the 
most  entrancing  things  in  the  way  of  a  view  that  I  have 


THE  PENNSYLVANIANS  57 

ever  seen.  There  are  city  scapes  that  seem  some  to 
mourn  and  some  to  sing.  This  was  one  that  sang.  It 
reminded  me  of  the  pen  and  ink  work  of  Rops  or  Vierge 
or  Whistler,  the  paintings  of  Turner  and  Moran.  Low 
hanging  clouds,  yellowish  or  black,  or  silvery  like  a  fish, 
mingled  with  a  splendid  filigree  of  smoke  and  chimneys 
and  odd  sky  lines.  Beds  of  goldenglow  ornamented  and 
relieved  a  group  of  tasteless  low  red  houses  or  sheds  in 
the  immediate  foreground,  which  obviously  sheltered  the 
heavy  broods  of  foreign  miners  and  their  wives.  The 
lines  of  red,  white,  blue  and  grey  wash,  the  honking  flocks 
of  white  geese,  the  flocks  of  pigeons  overhead,  the  paint- 
less  black  fences  protecting  orderly  truck  gardens,  as  well 
as  the  numerous  babies  playing  about,  all  attested  this. 
As  we  stood  there  a  group  of  heavy-hipped  women  and 
girls  (the  stocky  peasant  type  of  the  Hungarian-Silesian 
plains)  crossed  the  foreground  with  their  buckets.  Im 
mense  mounds  of  coal  and  slag  with  glimpses  of  distant 
breakers  perfected  the  suggestion  of  an  individual  and 
characterful  working  world.  Anyhow  we  paused  and  ap 
plauded  while  Franklin  got  his  sketching  board  and  I 
sauntered  to  find  more,  if  any,  attractive  angles.  In  the 
middle  distance  a  tall  white  skyscraper  stood  up,  a  pre 
lude,  or  a  foretouch  to  a  great  yellowish  black  cloud 
behind  it.  A  rich,  smoky,  sketchy  atmosphere  seemed  to 
hang  over  everything. 

"Isn't  Walkes-Barre  wonderful?"  I  said  to  Franklin. 
"Aren't  you  glad  now  you've  come?" 

"I  am  coming  down  here  to  paint  soon,"  he  said.  "This 
is  the  most  wonderful  thing  I  have  seen  in  a  long  while." 

And  so  we  stood  on  this  hillside  overlooking  Wilkes- 
Barre  for  a  considerable  period  while  Franklin  sketched, 
and  finally,  when  he  had  finished  and  I  had  wandered  a 
mile  down  the  road  to  see  more,  we  entered. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

BEAUTIFUL   WILKES-BARRE 

MY  own  interest  in  Wilkes-Barre  and  this  entire  region 
indeed  dated  from  the  great  anthracite  coal  strike  in 
1902,  in  my  estimation  one  of  the  fiercest  and  best  battles 
between  labor  and  capital  ever  seen  in  America.  Who 
does  not  know  the  history  of  it,  and  the  troubles  and  ills 
that  preceded  it?  I  recall  it  so  keenly — the  complaints 
of  the  public  against  the  rising  price  of  coal,  the  rumors 
of  how  the  Morgans  and  the  Vanderbilts  had  secured 
control  of  all  these  coal  lands  (or  the  railroads  that  car 
ried  their  coal  for  them),  and  having  this  latter  weapon 
or  club,  proceeded  to  compel  the  independent  coal  oper 
ators  to  do  their  will.  How,  for  instance,  they  had  de 
tained  the  cars  of  the  latter,  taxed  them  exorbitant  carry 
ing  charges,  frequently  declining  to  haul  their  coal  at  all 
on  the  ground  that  they  had  no  cars;  how  they  charged 
the  independent  mine  operator  three  times  as  much  for 
handling  his  hard  coal  (the  product  of  the  Eastern 
region)  as  they  did  the  soft  coal  men  of  the  west,  and 
when  he  complained  and  fought  them,  took  out  the 
spur  that  led  to  his  mine  on  the  ground  that  it  was 
unprofitable. 

Those  were  great  days  in  the  capitalistic  struggle  for 
control  in  America.  The  sword  fish  were  among  the 
blue  fish  slaying  and  the  sharks  were  after  the  sword  fish. 
Tremendous  battles  were  on,  with  Morgan  and  Rocke 
feller  and  Harriman  and  Gould  after  Morse  and  Heinze 
and  Hill  and  the  lesser  fry.  We  all  saw  the  end  in  the 
panic  of  1907,  when  one  multimillionaire,  the  scapegoat 
of  others  no  less  guilty,  went  to  the  penitentiary  for  fif 
teen  years,  and  another  put  a  revolver  to  his  bowels  and 
died  as  do  the  Japanese.  Posterity  will  long  remember 

58 


W     c 

S 


BEAUTIFUL  WILKES-BARRfi  59 

this  time.  It  cannot  help  it.  A  new  land  was  in  the  throes 
of  construction,  a  strange  race  of  men  with  finance  for 
their  weapon  were  fighting  as  desperately  as  ever  men 
fought  with  sword  or  cannon.  Individual  liberty  among 
the  masses  was  being  proved  the  thin  dream  it  has  al 
ways  been. 

I  have  found  in  my  book  of  quotations  and  labeled  for 
my  own  comfort  "The  Great  Coal  Appeal,"  a  statement 
written  by  John  Mitchell,  then  president  of  the  United 
Mine  Workers  of  America,  presenting  the  miners'  side  of 
the  case  in  this  great  strike  of  1902  which  was  fought  out 
here  in  Wilkes-Barre,  and  Scranton  and  all  the  country 
we  were  now  traversing.  It  was  written  at  the  time  when 
the  "Coal  Barons,"  as  they  were  called,  were  riding 
around  in  their  private  cars  with  curtains  drawn  to  keep 
out  the  vulgar  gaze  and  were  being  wined  and  dined  by 
governors  and  presidents,  while  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  men  and  boys,  all  admittedly  underpaid,  out 
on  strike  nearly  one  hundred  and  sixty  days — a  half  a 
year — waited  patiently  the  arbitration  of  their  difficulties. 
The  total  duration  of  the  strike  was  one  hundred  and 
sixtythree  days.  It  was  a  bitter  and  finally  victorious 
protest  against  an  enlarged  and  burdensome  ton,  com 
pany  houses,  company  stores,  powder  at  $2.75  a  keg 
which  anywhere  else  could  be  bought  for  ninety  cents  or 
$1.10. 

The  quotation  from  Mitchell  reads : 

In  closing  this  statement  I  desire  to  say  that  we  have  entered 
and  are  conducting  this  struggle  without  malice  and  without  bit 
terness.  We  believe  that  our  antagonists  are  acting  upon  misrep 
resentation  rather  than  in  bad  faith,  we  regard  them  not  as  ene 
mies  but  as  opponents,  and  we  strike  in  patience  until  they  shall 
accede  to  our  demands  or  submit  to  impartial  arbitration  the  dif 
ference  between  us.  We  are  striking  not  to  show  our  strength 
but  the  justice  of  our  cause,  and  we  desire  only  the  privilege  of 
presenting  our  case  to  a  fair  tribunal.  We  ask  not  for  favors 
but  for  justice  and  we  appeal  our  case  to  the  solemn  judgment  of 
the  American  people. 

Here  followed  a  detailed  statement  of  some  of  the  ills 


60  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

they  were  compelled  to  hear  and  which  I  have  in  part 
enumerated  above.     And  then: 

Involved  in  this  fight  are  questions  weightier  than  any  question 
of  dollars  and  cents.  The  present  miner  has  had  his  day.  He 
has  been  oppressed  and  ground  down ;  but  there  is  another  genera 
tion  coming  up,  a  generation  of  little  children  prematurely  doomed 
to  the  whirl  of  the  mill  and  the  noise  and  blackness  of  the  breaker. 
It  is  for  these  children  that  we  are  fighting.  We  have  not  under 
estimated  the  strength  of  our  opponents;  we  have  not  overesti 
mated  our  own  power  of  resistance.  Accustomed  always  to  live 
upon  a  little,  a  little  less  is  no  unendurable  hardship.  It  was  with 
a  quaking  of  hearts  that  we  called  for  a  strike.  It  was  with  a 
quaking  of  hearts  that  we  asked  for  our  last  pay  envelopes.  But 
in  the  grimy,  bruised  hand  of  the  miner  was  the  little  white  hand 
of  the  child,  a  child  like  the  children  of  the  rich,  and  in  the  heart 
of  the  miner  was  the  soul  rooted  determination  to  starve  to  the 
last  crust  of  bread  and  fight  out  the  long  dreary  battle  to  the  end, 
in  order  to  win  a  life  for  the  child  and  secure  for  it  a  place  in 
the  world  in  keeping  with  advancing  civilization. 

Messieurs,  I  know  the  strong  must  rule  the  weak,  the 
big  brain  the  little  one,  but  why  not  some  small  approxi 
mation  towards  equilibrium,  just  a  slightly  less  heavily 
loaded  table  for  Dives  and  a  few  more  crumbs  for  Laz 
arus?  I  beg  you — a  few  more  crumbs !  You  will  appear 
so  much  more  pleasing  because  of  your  generosity. 

Wilkes-Barre  proved  a  city  of  charm — a  city  so  in 
stinct  with  a  certain  constructive  verve  that  merely  to 
enter  it  was  to  feel  revivified.  After  our  long,  dreary 
drive  in  the  rain  the  sun  was  now  shining  through  sultry 
clouds  and  it  was  pleasant  to  see  the  welter  of  thriving 
foundries  and  shops,  smoky  and  black,  which  seemed  to 
sing  of  prosperity;  the  long,  smooth  red  brick  pavement 
of  the  street  by  which  we  entered,  so  very  kempt  and 
sanitary;  the  gay  public  square,  one  of  the  most  pleasing 
small  parks  I  have  ever  seen,  crowded  with  long  distance 
trolley  cars  and  motors — the  former  bearing  the  names 
of  towns  as  much  as  a  hundred  and  a  hundred  and  fifty 
miles  away.  The  stores  were  bright,  the  throngs  inter 
esting  and  cheerful.  We  actually,  spontaneously  and 
unanimously  exclaimed  for  joy. 


BEAUTIFUL  WILKES-BARRE  61 

Most  people  seem  to  have  concluded  that  America  is 
a  most  uninteresting  land  to  travel  in — not  nearly  so  in 
teresting  as  Europe,  or  Asia  or  Africa — and  from  the 
point  of  view  of  patina,  ancient  memories,  and  the  pres 
ence  of  great  and  desolate  monuments,  they  are  right. 
But  there  is  another  phase  of  life  which  is  equally  inter 
esting  to  me  and  that  is  the  youth  of  a  great  country. 
America,  for  all  its  hundreds  and  some  odd  years  of  life, 
is  a  mere  child  as  yet,  or  an  uncouth  stripling  at  best- 
gaunt,  illogical,  elate.  It  has  so  much  to  do  before  it 
can  call  itself  a  well  organized  or  historic  land,  and  yet 
humanly  and  even  architecturally  contrasted  with  Europe, 
I  am  not  so  sure  that  it  has  far  to  go.  Contrasted  with 
our  mechanical  equipment  Europe  is  a  child.  Show  me  a 
country  abroad  in  which  you  can  ride  by  trolley  the  dis 
tance  that  New  York  is  from  Chicago,  or  a  state  as  large 
as  Ohio  or  Indiana — let  alone  both  together — gridironed 
by  comfortable  lines,  in  such  a  way  that  you  can  travel 
anywhere  at  almost  any  time  of  the  night  or  day.  Where 
but  in  America  can  you  at  random  step  into  a  comfortable 
telephone  booth  and  telephone  to  any  city,  even  one  so 
far  as  three  thousand  miles  away;  or  board  a  train  in 
almost  any  direction  at  any  time,  which  will  take  you  a 
thousand  miles  or  more  without  change;  or  travel,  as  we 
did,  two  hundred  miles  through  a  fruitful,  prosperous  land 
with  wonderful  farms  and  farming  machinery  and  a 
general  air  of  sound  prosperity; — even  lush  richness? 
For  this  country  in  so  far  as  we  had  traversed  it  seemed 
wonderfully  prosperous  to  me,  full  of  airy,  comfortable 
homes,  of  spirited,  genial  and  even  witty  people — a  really 
happy  people.  I  take  that  to  be  worth  something — and 
a  sight  to  see. 

In  Europe  the  country  life  did  not  always  strike  me 
as  prosperous,  or  the  people  as  intelligent,  or  really  free 
in  their  souls.  In  England,  for  instance,  the  peasantry 
were  heavy,  sad,  dull. 

But  Wilkes-Barre  gave  evidences  of  a  real  charm. 
All  the  streets  about  this  central  heart  were  thriving 
marts  of  trade.  The  buildings  were  new,  substantial 


62  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

and  with  a  number  of  skyscrapers — these  inevitable  evi 
dences  of  America's  local  mercantile  ambitions,  quite  like 
the  cathedrals  religionists  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries  loved  to  build.  As  the  Florentines,  Venetians 
and  European  high  mightinesses  of  the  middle  ages  gen 
erally  went  in  for  castles,  palaces,  and  "hotels  de  Ville," 
so  Americans  of  money  today  "go  in"  for  high  buildings. 
We  love  them.  We  seem  to  think  they  are  typical  of 
our  strength  and  power.  As  the  Florentines,  Venetians, 
Pisans  and  Genoese  looked  on  their  leaning  towers  and 
campaniles,  so  we  on  these.  When  America  is  old,  and 
its  present  vigor  and  life  hunger  has  gone  and  an 
alien  or  degenerate  race  tramp  where  once  we  lived  and 
builded  so  vigorously,  perhaps  some  visitors  from  a  for 
eign  country  will  walk  here  among  these  ruins  and  sigh: 
"Ah,  yes.  The  Americans  were  a  great  people.  Their 
cities  were  so  wonderful.  These  mouldy  crumbling  sky 
scrapers,  and  fallen  libraries  and  post  offices  and  city 
halls  and  state  capitals !" 

In  Wilkes-Barre  it  was  easy  to  find  a  very  pretentious 
restaurant  of  the  "grill"  and  "rathskeller"  type,  so  fa 
miliar  and  so  dear,  apparently,  to  the  American  heart — 
a  partly  underground  affair,  with  the  usual  heavy  Flemish 
paneling,  a  colored  frieze  of  knights  and  goose  girls 
and  an  immense  yellow  bill  of  fare.  And  here  from  our 
waiter,  who  turned  out  to  be  one  of  those  dreadful  crea 
tures  one  sees  tearing  along  country  roads  in  khaki,  army 
boots  and  goggles — a  motor  cyclist — we  learned  there 
were  not  good  roads  west  of  Wilkes-Barre.  He  had 
motorcycled  to  all  places  within  a  hundred  or  so  miles 
east  of  here — Philadelphia,  Dover,  the  Water  Gap; 
but  he  knew  of  no  good  roads  west.  They  were  all  dirt 
or  rubble  and  full  of  ruts. 

Later  advice  from  a  man  who  owned  a  drug  and  sta 
tionery  store,  where  we  laid  in  a  stock  of  picture  post 
cards,  was  to  the  same  effect.  There  were  no  large  towns 
and  no  good  roads  west.  He  owned  a  Ford.  We  should 
take  the  road  to  Binghamton,  via  Scranton  (our  original 
"Scenic  Route"),  and  from  there  on  by  various  routes 


BEAUTIFUL  WILKES-BARRE  63 

to  Buffalo.  We  would  save  time  going  the  long  way 
round.  It  seemed  the  only  thing  to  do.  Our  motor 
cycling  waiter  had  said  as  much. 

By  now  it  was  nearly  five  o'clock.  I  was  so  enamored 
of  this  town  with  its  brisk  world  of  shoppers  and  mo 
torists  and  its  sprinkling  of  black  faced  miners  that 
I  would  have  been  perfectly  willing  to  make  a  night  of 
it  here — but  the  evening  was  turning  out  to  be  so  fine 
that  I  could  think  of  nothing  better  than  motoring  on 
and  on.  That  feel  of  a  cool  breeze  blowing  against  one, 
of  seeing  towns  and  hills  and  open  fields  and  humble 
farm  yards  go  scudding  by!  Of  hearing  the  tr-r-r-r-r-r 
of  this  sound  machine !  The  sun  was  coming  out  or 
at  least  great  patches  of  blue  were  appearing  in  the  heavy 
clouds  and  we  had  nineteen  miles  of  splendid  road,  we 
understood,  straight  along  the  banks  of  the  Susquehanna 
into  Scranton  and  thence  beyond,  if  we  wished.  As  much 
as  I  had  come  to  fancy  Wilkes-Barre  (I  promised  myself 
that  I  would  certainly  return  some  day) ,  I  was  perfectly 
willing  to  go. 

Right  here  began  the  most  delightful  portion  of  this 
trip — indeed  one  of  the  most  delightful  rides  I  have 
ever  had  anywhere.  Hitherto  the  Susquehanna  had 
never  been  anything  much  more  than  a  name  to  me.  I 
now  learned  that  it  takes  its  rise  from  Otsego  Lake  in 
Otsego  County,  New  York,  flows  west  to  Binghamton 
and  Owego  and  thence  southeast  via  Scranton,  Wilkes- 
Barre  and  Harrisburg  to  the  Chesapeake  Bay  at  Havre 
de  Grace.  Going  west  over  the  Pennsylvania  I  had  occa 
sionally  seen  a  small  portion  of  it  gemmed  with  rocky 
islands  and  tumbling  along,  thinly  bright  it  seemed  to 
me,  over  a  wide  area  of  stones  and  boulders.  Here  at 
Wilkes-Barre,  bordered  for  a  part  of  the  way  by  a  pub 
lic  park,  alongside  of  which  our  road  lay,  it  was  quite 
sizable,  smooth  and  greenish  grey.  Perhaps  it  was  due 
to  the  recent  heavy  rains  that  it  was  so  presentable. 

At  any  rate,  sentineled  by  great  hills,  it  seemed  to  come 
with  gentle  windings  hither  and  yon,  direct  from  the 
north.  And  the  valley  through  which  it  moved — how 


64  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

beautiful  it  really  was !  Here  and  there,  on  every  hand 
between  Wilkes-Barre  and  Scranton  were  to  be  seen 
immense  breakers  with  their  attendant  hills  of  coal  or 
slag  marking  the  mouths  of  mines.  As  we  rode  out  to 
night,  finding  it  easy  to  make  five  to  thirty  miles  an  hour, 
even  through  the  various  mining  towns  we  encountered 
on  the  way,  we  were  constantly  passing  groups  of  miners, 
some  on  foot,  some  in  trolleys,  some  in  that  new  inven 
tion,  the  jitney  bus,  which  seemed  to  be  employed  even 
on  these  stretches  of  road  where  one  would  have  imag 
ined  the  street  car  service  was  ample.  How  many  long 
lines  of  miners'  cottages  and  yellowish  frame  tene 
ments  we  passed !  I  wonder  why  it  is  that  a  certain  form 
of  such  poverty  and  work  seems  to  be  inseparably  identi 
fied  with  yellow  or  drab  paints?  So  many  of  these  cheap 
wooden  tenements  were  thus  enameled,  and  then  darkened 
or  smudged  by  grey  soot. 

Many  of  the  dwellers  in  these  hives  were  to  be  seen 
camped  upon  their  thresholds.  We  ran  through  one  long 
dreary  street — all  these  towns  followed  the  shores  of  the 
river — and  had  the  interest  of  seeing  a  runaway  horse, 
drawing  a  small  load  of  fence  posts,  dashing  toward  us 
and  finally  swerving  and  crashing  into  a  tree.  Again  a 
group  of  boys,  seeing  the  New  York  license  tag  on  our 
car,  hailed  us  with  a  disconcerting,  "Eh,  look  at  the 
New  York  bums!"  Still  farther  on,  finding  some  dif 
ficulty  with  the  lamps,  Speed  drew  up  by  the  roadside  to 
attend  to  them  while  Franklin  made  a  rough  sketch  of  a 
heavenly  scene  that  was  just  below  us — great  hills,  a  wide 
valley,  some  immense  breakers  in  the  foreground,  a  few 
clouds  tinted  pink  by  the  last  expiring  rays  of  the  day. 
This  was  such  a  sky  and  such  a  scene  as  might  prelude 
a  voice  from  heaven. 


CHAPTER  IX 

IN  AND   OUT   OF    SCRANTON 

DARKNESS  had  fallen  when  we  reached  Scranton.  We 
approached  from  the  south  along  a  ridge  road  which 
skirted  the  city  and  could  see  it  lying  below  to  the  east 
and  ablaze  with  arc  lights.  There  is  something  so  ap 
pealing  about  a  city  in  a  valley  at  dark.  Although  we 
had  no  reason  for  going  in — our  road  lay  really  straight 
on — I  wanted  to  go  down,  because  of  my  old  weakness, 
curiosity.  Nothing  is  more  interesting  to  me  than  the 
general  spectacle  of  life  itself  in  these  thriving  towns  of 
our  new  land — though  they  are  devoid  of  anything  historic 
or  in  the  main  artistic  (no  memories  even  of  any  great  im 
port).  I  cannot  help  speculating  as  to  what  their  future 
will  be.  What  writers,  what  statesmen,  what  arts,  what 
wars  may  not  take  their  rise  in  some  such  place  as  this? 

And  there  are  the  indefinable  and  yet  sweet  ways  of 
just  life.  We  dwellers  in  big  cities  are  inclined  to  over 
look  or  forget  entirely  the  half  or  quarter  cities  in  which 
thousands  upon  thousands  spend  all  their  lives.  For  my 
part,  I  am  never  tired  of  looking  at  just  mills  and  fac 
tories  and  those  long  lines  of  simple  streets  where  just 
common  people,  without  a  touch  perhaps  of  anything  that 
we  think  of  as  great  or  beautiful  or  dramatic,  dwell.  I 
was  not  particularly  pleased  with  Scranton  after  I  saw 
it — a  sprawling  world  of  perhaps  a  hundred  and  fifty  or 
two  hundred  thousand  people  without  the  verve  or  snap 
of  a  half  hundred  places  half  its  size, — but  still  here 
were  all  these  people.  It  was  a  warm  night  and  as  we 
descended  into  commonplace  streets  we  could  look 
through  the  open  windows  of  homes  or  "apartments"  or 
"flats"  and  see  the  usual  humdrum  type  of  furniture 
and  hangings,  the  inevitable  lace  curtains,  the  centre 

65 


66  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

tables,  the  huge,  junky  lamps,  the  upright  pianos  or  vic- 
trolas.  Whenever  I  see  long,  artless  streets  like  these 
in  the  hot,  breathless  summer  time,  I  feel  a  wave  of  com 
miseration  sweep  over  me,  and  yet  I  am  drawn  to  them 
by  something  which  makes  me  want  to  live  among  these 
people. 

Oh,  to  escape  endless  cogitation!  To  feel  that  a  new 
centre  table  or  a  new  lamp  or  a  new  pair  of  shoes  in  the 
autumn  might  add  something  to  my  happiness!  To 
believe  that  mere  eating  and  drinking,  the  cooking  of 
meals,  the  prospect  of  promotion  in  some  small  job  might 
take  away  the  misery  of  life,  and  so  to  escape  chemistry 
and  physics  and  the  horror  of  ultimate  brutal  law!  uln 
the  streets  of  Ur,"  says  an  old  Chaldean  chronicle,  "the 
women  were  weeping  for  that  Bel  was  dead."  Bel  was 
their  Christ  and  they  were  weeping  as  some  people  weep 
on  Good  Friday  to  this  day.  Such  women  one  might  find 
here  in  Scranton,  no  doubt;  believers  in  old  tales  of  old 
things.  After  five  or  six  thousand  years  there  is  still 
weeping  in  simple  streets  over  myths  as  vain ! 

Once  down  in  the  heart  of  Scranton,  I  did  not  care 
for  it  at  all.  It  was  so  customary — an  American  city  like 
Utica  or  Syracuse  or  Rochester  or  Buffalo — and  Ameri 
can  cities  of  the  hundred  thousand  class  are  so  much 
alike.  They  all  have  the  long  principal  street — possibly 
a  mile  long.  They  all  have  the  one  or  two  skyscrapers 
and  the  principal  dry  goods  store  and  the  hotel  and  the 
new  post  office  building  and  the  new  Carnegie  library  and 
sometimes  the  new  court  house  (if  it's  a  county  seat),  or 
the  new  city  hall.  Sometimes  these  structures  are  very 
charming  in  themselves — tastefully  done  and  all  that — 
but  most  American  cities  of  this  class  have  no  more 
imagination  than  an  owl.  They  never  think  of  doing  an 
original  thing. 

Do  you  think  they  would  allow  the  natural  configura 
tion  of  their  land  or  any  river  front,  or  lake,  or  water 
of  any  kind  to  do  anything  for  them?  Not  at  all.  It's 
the  rarest  exception  when,  as  at  Wilkes-Barre  for  in- 


IN  AND  OUT  OF  SCRANTON  67 

stance,  a  city  will  take  the  slightest  aesthetic  advantage  of 
any  natural  configuration  of  land  or  water. 

What!  put  a  park  or  esplanade  or  a  wall  along  a  hand 
some  river  bank  in  the  heart  of  the  town!  Impossible. 
Put  it  far  out  in  the  residence  section  where  it  truly 
belongs  and  let  the  river  go  hang.  Isn't  the  centre  of 
a  city  for  business?  What  right  has  a  park  there? 

Or  perhaps  it  is  a  great  lake  front  as  at  Buffalo  or 
Cleveland,  which  could  or  should  be  made  into  some 
thing  splendid — the  municipal  centre,  for  instance,  or 
the  site  of  a  great  park.  No.  Instead  the  city  will 
bend  all  its  energies  to  growing  away  from  it  and  leave 
it  to  shabby  factories  and  warehouses  and  tumble-down 
houses,  while  it  constructs  immense  parks  in  some  region 
where  a  park  could  never  possibly  have  as  much  charm 
as  on  the  water  front. 

Take  the  City  of  St.  Louis  as  a  case  in  point.  Here 
is  a  metropolis  which  has  a  naturally  fascinating  water 
front  along  the  Mississippi.  Here  is  a  stream  that  is 
quite  wonderful  to  look  at — broad  and  deep.  Years 
ago,  when  St.  Louis  was  small  and  river  traffic  was  im 
portant,  all  the  stores  were  facing  this  river.  Later  rail 
roads  came  and  the  town  built  west.  Today  blocks  and 
blocks  of  the  most  interesting  property  in  the  city  is 
devoted  to  dead-alive  stores,  warehouses  and  tenements. 
It  would  be  an  easy  matter  and  a  profitable  one  for  the 
city  to  condemn  sufficient  property  to  make  a  splendid 
drive  along  this  river  and  give  the  city  a  real  air.  It 
would  transform  it  instantly  into  a  kind  of  wonder  world 
which  thousands  would  travel  a  long  way  to  see.  It 
would  provide  sites  for  splendid  hotels  and  restaurants 
and  give  the  city  a  suitable  front  door  or  facade. 

But  do  you  think  this  would  ever  be  seriously  con 
templated?  It  would  cost  money.  One  had  better  build 
a  park  away  from  the  river  where  there  are  no  old 
houses.  The  mere  thought  of  trading  the  old  houses  for 
a  wonderful  scene  which  would  add  beauty  and  life  to 
the  city  is  too  much  of  a  stretch  of  the  imagination  for 
St.  Louisians  to  accomplish.  It  can't  be  done.  Ameri- 


68  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

can  cities  are  not  given  to  imagination  outside  the  walks 
of  trade. 

Scranton  was  no  worse  than  many  another  American 
city  of  the  same  size  and  class  that  I  have  seen — or  in 
deed  than  many  of  the  newer  European  cities.  It  was 
well  paved,  well  lighted  and  dull.  There  were  the  usual 
traffic  policemen  (like  New  York,  b'gosh!),  but  with  no 
traffic  to  guide,  the  one  hotel  designed  to  impress,  the 
civic  square  surrounded  by  rows  of  thickly  placed  five- 
lamp  standards.  It  was  presentable,  and,  because  Speed 
wanted  to  get  oil  and  gasoline  and  we  wanted  to  see  what 
the  town  was  like,  we  ran  the  machine  into  a  garage  and 
wandered  forth,  looking  into  shoe  and  bookstore  win 
dows  and  studying  the  people. 

Here  again  I  could  see  no  evidence  of  that  transfor 
mation  of  the  American  by  the  foreigner  into  something 
different  from  what  he  has  ever  been — the  peril  which 
has  been  so  much  discussed  by  our  college  going  sociolo 
gists.  On  the  contrary,  America  seemed  to  me  to  be 
making  over  the  foreigner  into  its  own  image  and  like 
ness.  I  learned  here  that  there  were  thousands  of  Poles, 
Czechs,  Croatians,  Silesians,  Hungarians,  etc.,  working 
here  in  the  coal  mines  and  at  Wilkes-Barre,  but  the  young 
men  on  the  streets  and  in  the  stores  were  Americans. 
Here  were  the  American  electric  signs  in  great  profusion, 
the  American  bookstores  and  newsstands  crowded  with 
all  that  mushy  adventure  fiction  of  which  our  lady  critics 
are  so  fond.  Five  hundred  magazines  and  weekly  pub 
lications  blazed  the  faces  of  alleged  pretty  girls.  "The 
automat,"  the  "dairy  kitchen,"  the  "Boston,"  "Milwau 
kee"  or  "Chicago"  lunch,  and  all  the  smart  haberdash 
eries  so  beloved  of  the  ambitious  American  youth,  were 
in  full  bloom.  I  saw  at  least  a  half  dozen  moving- 
picture  theatres  in  as  many  blocks — and  business  and 
correspondence  schools  in  ample  array. 

What  becomes  of  all  the  young  Poles,  Czechs,  Croa 
tians,  Serbians,  etc.,  who  are  going  to  destroy  us?  I'll 
tell  you.  They  gather  on  the  street  corners  when  their 
parents  will  permit  them,  arrayed  in  yellow  or  red  ties, 


IN  AND  OUT  OF  SCRANTON  69 

yellow  shoes,  dinky  fedoras  or  beribboned  straw  hats 
and  "style-plus"  clothes,  and  talk  about  uwhen  I  was  out 
to  Dreamland  the  other  night,'*  or  make  some  such  ob 
servation  as  "Say,  you  should  have  seen  the  beaut  that 
cut  across  here  just  now.  Oh,  mamma,  some  baby!" 
That's  all  the  menace  there  is  to  the  foreign  invasion. 
Whatever  their  original  intentions  may  be,  they  can't  re 
sist  the  American  yellow  shoe,  the  American  moving  pic 
ture,  "Stein-Koop"  clothes,  "Dreamland,"  the  popular 
song,  the  automobile,  the  jitney.  They  are  completely  un 
done  by  our  perfections.  Instead  of  throwing  bombs  or 
lowering  our  social  level,  all  bogies  of  the  sociologist, 
they  would  rather  stand  on  our  street  corners,  go  to  the 
nearest  moving  pictures,  smoke  cigarettes,  wear  high 
white  collars  and  braided  yellow  vests  and  yearn  over 
the  girls  who  know  exactly  how  to  handle  them,  or  work 
to  some  day  own  an  automobile  and  break  the  speed 
laws.  They  are  really  not  so  bad  as  we  seem  to  want 
them  to  be.  They  are  simple,  gauche,  de  jeune,  "the 
limit."  In  other  words,  they  are  fast  becoming  Ameri 
cans. 

I  think  it  was  during  this  evening  at  Scranton  that 
it  first  dawned  on  me  what  an  agency  for  the  transmis 
sion  of  information  and  a  certain  kind  of  railway  station 
gossip  the  modern  garage  has  become.  In  the  old  days, 
when  railroads  were  new  or  the  post  road  was  still  in 
force,  the  depot  or  the  inn  was  always  the  centre  for  a 
kind  of  gay  travelers'  atmosphere  or  way  station  ex 
change  for  gossip,  where  strangers  alighted,  refreshed 
themselves  and  did  a  little  talking  to  pass  the  time.  To 
day  the  garage  has  become  a  third  and  even  more  notable 
agency  for  this  sort  of  exchange,  automobile  travelers 
being  for  the  most  part  a  genial  company  and  constantly 
reaching  out  for  information.  Anyone  who  knows  any 
thing  about  the  roads  of  his  native  town  and  country 
is  always  in  demand,  for  he  can  fall  into  long  conversa 
tion  with  chauffeurs  or  tourists  in  general,  who  will 
occasionally  close  the  conversation  with  an  offer  of  a 


70  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

drink  or  a  cigar,  or,  if  he  is  going  in  their  direction,  take 
him  for  a  part  of  the  way  at  least  as  a  guide. 

Having  found  Scranton  so  dull  that  we  could  not  make 
up  our  minds  to  remain  overnight,  we  returned  to  the 
garage  we  were  patronizing  and  found  it  crowded  to 
the  doors  with  cars  of  all  descriptions  and  constantly 
being  invaded  by  some  others  in  search  of  something. 
Here  were  a  group  of  those  typical  American  hangers- 
on  or  loafers  or  city  gossips  or  chair  warmers — one 
scarcely  knows  what  to  call  them — who,  like  the  Roman 
frequenters  of  the  Forum  or  the  Greek  "sitters  at  the 
place  of  customs,"  gather  to  pass  the  time  by  watching 
the  activity  and  the  enthusiasm  of  others.  Personally  my 
heart  rather  yearns  over  that  peculiar  temperament,  com 
mon  enough  to  all  the  abodes  of  men,  which  for  lack  of 
spirit  or  strength  or  opportunity  in  itself  to  get  up  and  do, 
is  still  so  moved  by  the  spectacle  of  life  that  it  longs  to  be 
where  others  are  doing.  Here  they  were,  seven  or  eight 
of  them,  leaning  against  handsome  machines,  talking, 
gesticulating  and  proffering  information  to  all  and  sun 
dry  who  would  have  it.  Owing  to  the  assertion  of  the 
proprietor's  helper  (who  was  eager,  naturally  enough, 
to  have  the  car  housed  here  for  the  night,  as  he  would 
get  a  dollar  for  it)  that  the  roads  were  bad  between 
here  and  Binghamton,  a  distance  of  sixtynine  miles,  we 
were  a  little  uncertain  whether  to  go  on  or  no.  But  this 
charge  of  a  dollar  was  an  irritation,  for  in  most  garages, 
as  Speed  informed  us,  the  night  charge  was  only  fifty 
cents.  Besides,  the  same  youth  was  foolish  enough  to 
confess,  after  Speed  questioned  him,  that  the  regular 
charge  to  local  patrons  was  only  fifty  cents. 

Something  in  the  youth's  description  of  the  difficulties 
of  the  road  between  here  and  Binghamton  caused  me 
to  feel  that  he  was  certainly  laying  it  on  a  little  thick. 
According  to  him,  there  had  been  terrible  rains  in  the 
last  few  weeks.  The  road  in  spots  was  all  but  impas 
sable.  There  were  great  hills,  impossible  ravines,  and 
deadly  railroad  crossings.  I  am  not  so  much  of  an 
enthusiast  for  night  riding  as  to  want  to  go  in  the  face 


m%spl 

,  JV-W«L,  ^  .fPfev" 


'      .,! 


FRANKLIN    STUDIES    AN    OBLITERATED    SIGN 


IN  AND  OUT  OF  SCRANTON  71 

of  difficulties — indeed  I  would  much  rather  ride  by  day, 
when  the  beauties  of  the  landscape  can  be  seen, — still 
this  attempt  to  frighten  us  irritated  me. 

And  then  the  hangers-on  joined  in.  Obviously  they 
were  friends  of  the  owner  and,  like  a  Greek  chorus,  were 
brought  on  at  critical  moments  to  emphasize  the  tragedy 
or  the  terror  or  the  joy,  as  the  case  might  be.  Instantly 
we  were  assailed  with  new  exaggerations — there  were 
dreadful,  unguarded  railway  crossings,  a  number  of  rob 
beries  had  been  committed  recently,  one  bridge  some 
where  was  weak. 

This  finished  me. 

"They  are  just  talking  to  get  that  dollar/'  I  whis 
pered  to  Franklin. 

"Sure,"  he  replied;  "it's  as  plain  as  anything.  I  think 
we  might  as  well  go  on." 

"By  all  means,"  I  urged.  "We've  climbed  higher 
hills  and  traversed  worse  or  as  bad  roads  today  as  we 
will  anywhere  else.  I  don't  like  Scranton  very  well 
anyhow." 

My  opposition  was  complete.  Speed  looked  a  little 
tired  and  I  think  would  have  preferred  to  stay.  But 
my  feeling  was  that  at  least  we  could  run  on  to  some 
small  inn  or  country  town  hotel  where  the  air  would  be 
fresher  and  the  noises  less  offensive.  After  a  long  year 
spent  in  the  heart  of  New  York,  I  was  sick  of  the  city — 
any  city. 

So  we  climbed  in  and  were  off  again. 

It  was  not  so  long  after  dark.  The  road  lay  north, 
through  summery  crowded  streets  for  a  time  and  then 
out  under  the  stars.  A  cool  wind  was  blowing.  One 
old  working  man  whom  we  had  met  and  of  whom  we 
had  asked  the  way  had  given  us  something  to  jest  over. 

"Which  way  to  Dalton?"  we  called.  This  was  the 
next  town  on  our  road. 

"Over  the  viderdock,"  he  replied,  with  a  wave  of  his 
arm,  and  thereafter  all  viaducts  became  "viderdocks" 
for  us.  We  sank  into  the  deep  leather  cushions  and, 
encountering  no  bad  roads,  went  comfortably  on.  The 


72  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

trees  in  places  hung  low  and  seemed  to  make  arched 
green  arbors  through  which  we  were  speeding,  so  pow 
erful  were  our  lamps.  At  one  place  we  came  upon  a 
brilliantly  lighted  amusement  resort  and  there  we  could 
not  resist  stopping.  There  was  music  and  dancing  and 
all  the  young  clerks  and  beaus  for  miles  around  were 
here  with  their  girls.  I  was  so  entranced  that  I  wanted 
to  stay  on,  hoping  that  some  young  girl  might  talk 
to  me,  but  not  one  gave  me  even  so  much  as  a  smile. 
Then  we  came  to  a  country  inn — an  enticing  looking 
thing  among  great  trees — but  we  were  awake  now,  en 
joying  the  ride,  and  Speed  was  smoking  a  cigarette — why 
quit  now?  So  on  and  on,  up  hills  and  down  dale,  and 
now  and  then  we  seemed  to  be  skirting  the  Susquehanna. 
At  other  times  we  seemed  to  be  off  in  side  hills  where 
there  were  no  towns  of  any  size.  A  railroad  train  came 
into  view  and  disappeared;  a  trolley  track  joined  us 
and  disappeared;  a  toll  road  made  us  pay  fifteen  cents— 
and  disappeared.  At  last  as  it  neared  unto  midnight  I 
began  to  get  sleepy  and  then  I  argued  that,  whatever 
town  came  next,  we  should  pause  there  for  the  night. 

"All  right,"  said  Franklin  genially,  and  then  more 
aisles  and  more  streams  and  more  stores — and  then  in 
the  distance  some  manufactories  came  into  view,  brightly 
lighted  windows  reflected  in  some  water. 

"Here  we  are,"  I  sighed  sleepily,  but  we  weren't,  not 
quite.  This  was  a  crossroad  somewhere — a  dividing 
of  the  ways — but  the  readable  signs  to  say  which  way 
were  not  visible.  We  got  out  and  struck  matches  to 
make  the  words  more  intelligible.  They  had  been  oblit 
erated  by  rust.  I  saw  a  light  in  a  house  and  went  there. 
A  tall,  spare  man  of  fifty  came  out  on  the  porch  and 
directed  us.  This  was  Factoryville  or  near  it,  he  said — 
another  mile  on  we  would  find  an  inn.  We  were  some 
thing  like  twentyfive  miles  from  Scranton.  If  you 
stop  and  look  at  electric  parks  and  watch  the  dancers, 
you  can't  expect  to  make  very  good  time.  In  Factory 
ville,  as  dark  and  silent  as  a  small  sleeping  town  may  be, 


IN  AND  OUT  OF  SCRANTON  73 

we  found  one  light — or  Franklin  did — and  behind  it  the 
village  barber  reading  a  novel.  In  the  shadow  of  his 
doorway  Franklin  entered  into  a  long  and  intimate  dis 
cussion  with  him — about  heaven  only  knows  what.  I 
had  already  noted  of  Franklin  that  he  could  take  up  more 
time  securing  seeming  information  than  any  human  be 
ing  I  had  ever  known.  It  was  astounding  how  he  could 
stand  and  gossip,  coming  back  finally  with  such  a  simple 
statement  as,  "He  says  turn  to  the  right,"  or  "We  go 
north."  But  why  a  week  to  discover  this,  I  used  to 
think.  Finally,  almost  arm  in  arm  with  the  barber,  they 
disappeared  around  a  corner.  A  weary  string  of  mo 
ments  rolled  past  before  Franklin  strolled  back  to  say 
there  was  no  real  inn — no  hotel  that  had  a  license — but 
there  was  a  man  who  kept  a  "kind  of  a  hotel"  and  he 
had  a  barn  or  shed,  which  would  do  as  a  garage. 

"Better  stay,  eh?"  he  suggested. 

"Well,  rather,"  I  answered. 

When  we  had  unslung  our  bags  and  coats,  Speed  took 
the  car  to  the  barn  in  the  rear  and  up  we  went  into  a 
typical  American  papier  mache  room.  The  least  step, 
the  least  movement,  and  wooden  floors  and  partitions 
seemed  to  shout.  But  there  were  two  large  rooms  with 
three  beds  and,  what  was  more,  a  porch  with  a  wooden 
swing.  There  was  a  large  porcelain  bath  in  a  room  at 
the  rear  and  pictures  of  all  the  proprietor's  relatives 
done  in  crayon. 

How  we  slept!  There  were  plenty  of  windows,  with 
a  fresh  breeze  blowing  and  no  noises,  except  some  katy 
dids  sawing  lustily.  I  caught  the  perfume  of  country 
woods  and  fields  and,  afar  off,  as  I  stretched  on  an  easy 
bed,  I  could  hear  a  train  whistling  and  rumbling  faintly — 
that  far  off  Ooh! — ooh! — oo! — oo! 

I  lay  there  thinking  what  a  fine  thing  it  was  to  motor 
in  this  haphazard  fashion — how  pleasant  it  was  not  to 
know  where  you  were  going  or  where  you  would  be 
tomorrow,  exactly.  Franklin's  car  was  so  good,  Speed 
so  careful.  Then  I  seemed  to  be  borne  somewhere  on 


74  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

great  wings,  until  the  dawn  coming  in  at  the  window 
awakened  me.  The  birds  were  singing. 

"Oh,  yes,  Factoryville,"  I  sighed.  "That's  where  we 
are.  We're  motoring  to  Indiana." 

And  I  turned  over  and  slept  another  hour. 


CHAPTER  X 

A  LITTLE  AMERICAN  TOWN 

FACTORYVILLE,  as  we  found  this  morning,  was  one 
of  these  very  small  places  which,  to  one  weary  of  metro 
politan  life,  occasionally  prove  entertaining  through  an 
extreme  simplicity  and  a  sense  of  rest  and  peace.  It 
was,  as  I  saw  sitting  in  my  dressing  gown  in  our  conven 
ient  wooden  swing,  a  mere  collection  of  white  cottages 
with  large  lawns  or  country  yard  spaces  and  flowers  in 
profusion  and  a  few  stores.  Dr.  A.  B.  Fitch,  Druggist 
(I  could  see  this  sign  on  the  window  before  which  he 
stood),  was  over  the  way  sweeping  off  the  sidewalk  in 
front  of  his  store.  I  knew  it  was  Dr.  A.  B.  Fitch  by 
his  solemn  proprietary  air,  his  alpaca  coat,  his  serious 
growth  of  thick  grey  whiskers.  He  was  hatless  and 
serene.  I  could  almost  hear  him  saying:  "Now,  Annie, 
you  tell  your  mother  that  this  medicine  is  to  be  taken 
one  teaspoonful  every  three  hours,  do  you  hear?" 

Farther  down  the  street  H.  B.  Wendel,  hardware 
dealer,  was  setting  out  a  small  red  and  green  lawn- 
mower  and  some  zinc  cans  capable  of  holding  anything 
from  rain  water  to  garbage.  This  was  his  inducement 
to  people  to  come  and  buy.  Although  it  was  still  very 
early,  citizens  were  making  their  way  down  the  street, 
a  working  man  or  two,  going  to  some  distant  factory 
not  in  Factoryville,  a  woman  in  a  gingham  poke  bonnet 
standing  at  a  corner  of  her  small  white  home  examin 
ing  her  flowers,  a  small  barefooted  boy  kicking  the  damp 
dust  of  the  road  with  his  toes.  It  reminded  me  of  the 
time  when,  as  a  youth  in  a  similar-town,  I  used  to  get  up 
early  and  see  my  mother  browsing  over  early,  dew- 
laden  blossoms.  I  was  for  staying  in  Factoryville  for 
some  time. 

75 


76  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

But  Franklin,  energetic  soul,  would  have  none  of 
it.  He  had  lived  in  a  small  town  or  on  a  farm  for  the 
greater  part  of  his  life  and,  unlike  me,  had  never  really 
deserted  the  country.  Inside  the  room,  on  the  balcony 
of  which  I  was  already  swinging  and  idly  musing,  he 
was  industriously  shaving — a  task  I  was  reserving  for 
some  city  barber.  Presently  he  came  out  and  sat  down. 

"Isn't  it  wonderful — the  country!"  I  said.  "This 
town!  See  old  Dr.  Fitch  over  there,  and  that  grocery 
man  putting  out  his  goods." 

"Yes!"  replied  Franklin.  "Carmel  is  very  much  like 
this.  There's  no  particular  life  there.  A  little  small 
town  trading.  Of  course,  Indianapolis  has  come  so  near 
now  that  they  can  all  go  down  there  by  trolley,  and 
that  makes  a  difference." 

Forthwith  he  launched  into  amusing  tales  of  Car 
melite  character — bits  too  idle  or  too  profane  to  be 
narrated  here.  One  only  I  remember — that  of  some 
yokels  who  were  compelled  to  find  a  new  hangout  be 
cause  the  old  building  they  frequented  was  torn  down. 
When  Franklin  encountered  them  in  the  new  place  he 
said  quite  innocently:  "This  place  hasn't  as  much  atmos 
phere  as  the  old  one."  "Oh,  yes,  it  has,"  rejoined  the 
rural.  "When  you  open  the  back  windows." 

Speed  was  shaving  too  by  now,  inside,  and,  hearing  me 
sing  the  delights  of  rural  life  (windows  and  doors  were 
open),  he  put  in: 

"Yes,  that's  all  well  enough,  but  after  you'd  lived 
here  awhile  you  mightn't  like  it  so  much.  Gee!  people 
in  the  country  aren't  any  different  from  people  anywhere 
else." 

Speed  had  a  peculiarly  pained  and  even  frightened 
look  on  his  face  at  times,  like  a  cloud  passing  over  a 
landscape  or  something  that  made  me  want  to  put  my 
hand  on  his  shoulder  and  say,  "There,  there."  I  won 
dered  sometimes  whether  he  had  often  been  hungry  or 
thrown  out  of  a  job  or  put  upon  in  some  unkind  way. 
He  could  seem  momentarily  so  pathetic. 

"I  know,  I  know,"  I  said  gaily,  "but  there  are  the 


A  LITTLE  AMERICAN  TOWN  77 

cows  and  the  trees  and  the  little  flower  gardens  and  the 
farmers  mowing  hay  and " 

"Huh!"  was  all  he  deigned  to  reply,  as  he  shaved. 
Franklin,  in  his  large  tolerance  of  vagaries  and  mush, 
did  not  condescend  to  comment.  I  did  not  even  win 
a  smile.  He  was  looking  at  the  drugstore  and  the  hard 
ware  store  and  an  old  man  in  a  shapeless,  baggy  suit 
hobbling  along  on  a  cane. 

"I  like  the  country  myself,"  he  said  finally,  "except 
I  wouldn't  want  to  have  to  farm  for  a  living." 

I  could  not  help  thinking  of  all  the  days  we  (I  am 
referring  to  a  part  of  our  family)  had  lived  in  these 
small  towns  and  how  as  a  boy  I  used  to  wish  and  wish 
for  so  many  things.  The  long  trains  going  through! 
The  people  who  went  to  Chicago,  or  Evansville,  or  Terre 
Haute,  or  Indianapolis!  A  place  like  Brazil,  Indiana, 
a  mere  shabby  coal  town  of  three  or  four  thousand  popu 
lation,  seemed  something  wonderful.  All  the  world  was 
outside  and  I,  sitting  on  our  porch — front  or  back 
er  on  the  grass  or  under  a  tree,  all  alone,  used  to  wonder 
and  wonder.  When  would  I  go  out  into  the  world? 
Where  would  I  go?  What  would  I  do?  What  see? 
And  then  sometimes  the  thought  of  my  father  and 
mother  not  being  near  any  more — my  mother  being  dead, 
perhaps — and  my  sisters  and  brothers  scattered  far  and 
wide,  and — I  confess  a  little  sadly  even  now — a  lump 
would  swell  in  my  throat  and  I  would  be  ready  to  cry. 

A  sentimentalist? 

Indeed! 

In  a  little  while  we  were  called  to  breakfast  in  a 
lovely,  homely  diningroom  such  as  country  hotels  some 
times  boast — a  diningroom  of  an  indescribable  artless- 
ness  and  crudity.  It  was  so  haphazard,  so  slung  to 
gether  of  old  yellow  factory  made  furniture,  chromos, 
lithographs,  flychasers,  five  jar  castors,  ironstone  "china," 
and  heaven  only  knows  what  else,  that  it  was  delightful. 
It  was  clean,  yes;  and  sweet  withal — very — just  like  so 
many  of  our  honest,  frank,  kindly  psalm  singing  Metho 
dists  and  Baptists  are.  The  father  and  mother  were 


78  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

eating  their  breakfast  here,  at  one  table.  The  little  fair 
haired  hired  girl — with  no  more  qualification  as  a  waitress 
than  a  Thibetan  Llama — was  waiting  on  table.  The 
traveling  men,  one  or  two  of  them  at  every  breakfast 
no  doubt,  were  eating  their  fried  ham  and  eggs  or  their 
fried  steak,  and  their  fried  potatoes,  and  drinking  un 
believable  coffee  or  tea. 

Dear,  crude,  asinine,  illusioned  Americans !  How  I 
love  them!  And  the  great  fields  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Pacific  holding  them  all,  and  their  dreams  I  How 
they  rise,  how  they  hurry,  how  they  run  under  the  sun! 
Here  they  are  building  a  viaduct,  there  a  great  road, 
yonder  plowing  fields  or  sowing  grain,  their  faces  lit 
with  eternal,  futile  hope  of  happiness.  You  can  see  them 
religiously  tending  store,  religiously  running  a  small 
town  country  hotel,  religiously  mowing  the  grass,  reli 
giously  driving  shrewd  bargains  or  thinking  that  mubh 
praying  will  carry  them  to  heaven — the  dear  things! — 
and  then  among  them  are  the  bad  men,  the  loafers,  the 
people  who  chew  tobacco  and  swear  and  go  to  the  cities 
Saturday  nights  and  "cut  up"  and  don't  save  their 
money! 

Dear,  dear,  darling  Yankee  land — "my  country  tis" — 
when  I  think  of  you  and  all  your  ills  and  all  your  dreams 
and  all  your  courage  and  your  faith — I  could  cry  over 
you,  wringing  my  hands. 

But  you,  you  great  men  of  brains — you  plotters  of 
treason,  of  taxes  which  are  not  honest,  of  burdens  too 
heavy  to  be  borne,  beware !  These  be  simple  souls,  my 
countrymen  singing  simple  songs  in  childish  ignorance 
and  peace,  dreaming  sweet  dreams  of  life  and  love  and 
hope.  Don't  awake  them!  Let  them  not  once  suspect, 
let  them  not  faintly  glimpse  the  great  tricks  and  subter 
fuges  by  which  they  are  led  and  harlequined  and 
cheated;  let  them  not  know  that  their  faith  is  nothing, 
their  hope  nothing,  their  love  nothing — or  you  may 
see  the  bonfires  of  wrath  alight — in  the  "evening  dews 
and  damp,"  the  camps  of  the  hungry — the  lifting  aloft 
of  the  fatal  stripes — red  for  blood  and  white  for  spirit 


A  LITTLE  AMERICAN  TOWN  79 

and  blue  for  dreams  of  man;  the  white  drawn  faces  of 
earnest  seeking  souls  carrying  the  symbols  of  their  de 
sire,  the  guns  and  mortars  and  shells  of  their  dreams! 

Remember  Valley  Forge!  Remember  Germantown; 
remember  the  Wilderness;  remember  Lookout  Moun 
tain!  These  will  not  be  disappointed.  Their  faith  is 
too  deep — their  hope  too  high.  They  will  burn  and  slay, 
but  the  fires  of  their  dreams  will  bring  other  dreams  to 
make  this  old  illusion  seem  true. 

It  can  hardly  be  said  that  America  has  developed  a 
culinary  art,  because  so  many  phases  of  our  cooking  are 
not,  as  yet,  common  to  all  parts  of  the  country.  In  the 
southeast  south  you  have  fried  chicken  and  gravy,  corn- 
pone,  corn  pudding,  biscuit,  and  Virginia  ham,  southern 
style;  in  the  southwest  south  you  have  broilers,  chicken 
tamales,  chile  con  carne,  and  all  the  nuances  acquired 
from  a  proximity  to  Mexico.  In  New  England  one  en 
counters  the  baked  bean,  the  cold  biscuit,  pie  for  break 
fast,  and  codfish  cakes.  In  the  great  hotels  and  best 
restaurants  of  the  large  cities,  especially  in  the  east,  the 
French  cuisine  dominates.  In  the  smaller  cities  of  the 
east  and  west,  where  no  French  chef  would  deign  to 
waste  his  days,  German,  Italian  and  Greek — to  say  noth 
ing  of  Jewish — and  purely  American  restaurants  (the 
dairy  kitchen,  for  example)  now  contest  with  each 
other  for  patronage.  We  have  never  developed  a  single, 
dominating  system  of  our  own.  The  American  "grill" 
or  its  companion  in  dullness,  the  American  "rathskeller," 
boast  a  mixture  of  everything  and  are  not  really  any 
thing.  In  all  cities  large  and  small  may  be  found  these 
horrible  concoctions  which  in  their  superficial  treatment 
are  supposed  to  be  Flemish  or  Elizabethan  or  old  Ger 
man  combined  with  the  worse  imaginings  of  the  socalled 
mission  school  of  furniture.  Here  German  pancakes, 
knackwurst  and  cheesecake  come  cheek  by  jowl  with 
American  biscuit,  English  muffins,  French  rolls,  Hun 
garian  goulash,  chicken  a  la  Maryland,  steaks,  chops, 
and  ham  and  eggs.  It's  serviceable,  and  yet  it's  offensive. 


8o  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

The  atmosphere  is  deadly — the  idea  atrocious.  By  com 
parison  with  a  French  inn  or  a  German  family  restau 
rant  such  as  one  finds  in  Frankfort  or  Berlin,  or  even 
an  English  chophouse,  it  is  unbelievably  bad.  Yet  it 
seems  to  suit  the  present  day  spirit  of  America. 

All  restaurant  forms  are  being  tried  out — French, 
Greek,  Italian,  Turkish,  English,  Spanish,  German — to 
say  nothing  of  teahouses  of  all  lands.  In  the  long  run, 
possibly  some  one  school  will  become  dominant  or  a 
compromise  among  them  all.  By  that  time  American 
cooking  will  have  become  a  complex  of  all  the  others. 
I  sincerely  trust  that  in  the  internecine  struggle  fried 
chicken,  gravy,  fresh  hot  biscuit,  blackberry  pie  and  fried 
mush  do  not  wholly  disappear.  I  am  fond  of  French 
cooking  and  have  a  profound  respect  for  the  German 
art — but  there !  Supposing  that  never  anywhere,  any 
more,  was  there  to  be  any  fried  mush  or  blackberry  pie !  1 1 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   MAGIC    OF  THE   ROAD   AND    SOME   TALES 

OUR  particular  breakfast  consisted  of  a  choice  of  sev 
eral  "flake"  breakfast  foods,  a  hard  fried  chop,  an  egg 
or  two,  fried,  some  German  fried  potatoes,  and  all  done 
as  an  American  small  town  hotelkeeper  used  to  dealing 
with  farmers  and  storekeepers  and  "hands"  would  imag 
ine  they  ought  to  be  done.  Where  did  the  average 
American  first  get  the  idea  that  meals  of  nearly  all  kinds 
need  to  be  fried  hard?  Or  that  tea  has  to  be  made  so 
strong  that  it  looks  black  and  tastes  like  weeds?  Or 
that  German  fried  potatoes  ought  to  be  soggy  and  that 
all  people  prefer  German  fried  potatoes?  If  you  should 
ask  for  French  fried  potatoes  or  potatoes  au  gratin  or 
potatoes  O'Brien  in  a  small  country  town  hotel  you  would 
be  greeted  with  a  look  of  uncertainty  if  not  of  resent 
ment.  French  fried  potatoes,  pray — or  meat  medium 
or  broiled?  Impossible!  And  as  for  weak,  clear,  taste 
ful  tea — shades  of  Buffalo  Bill  and  Davy  Crockett! 
"Whoever  heard  of  weak,  clear  tea?  The  man  has  gone 
mad.  He  is  some  'city  fellow,'  bent  on  showing  off.  It 
is  up  to  us  to  teach  him  not  to  get  smart.  We  must 
frown  and  delay  and  show  that  we  do  not  approve  of 
him  at  all." 

While  we  were  eating,  I  was  thinking  where  our  car 
would  take  us  this  day,  and  the  anticipation  of  new  fields 
and  strange  scenes  was  enough  to  make  a  mere  poor 
breakfast  a  very  trivial  matter  indeed.  Clouds  and  high 
hills,  and  spinning  along  the  bank  of  some  winding 
stream,  were  an  ample  exchange  for  any  temporary  in 
convenience.  After  breakfast  and  while  Franklin  and 
I  once  more  tightened  up  our  belongings,  Speed  brought 
about  the  machine  and  in  the  presence  of  a  few  resi- 

81 


82  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

dents — a  young  girl  of  fifteen  for  one,  who  looked  at 
us  with  wide,  wishful  eyes — we  strapped  on  the  bags 
and  took  our  seats.  I  could  not  help  feeling  as  I  looked 
at  some  of  them  who  observed  us  that  they  were  wish 
ing  they  were  in  our  places.  The  car  was  good  to  look 
at.  It  was  quite  obvious  from  the  various  bags  and 
wraps  that  we  were  en  route  somewhere.  Someone  was 
always  asking  us  where  we  were  from  and  where  we  were 
going — questions  which  the  magic  name  of  New  York, 
particularly  this  distance  away,  seemed  to  make  all  the 
more  significant.  The  night  before  in  the  garage  at 
Scranton  a  youth,  hearing  us  say  that  we  were  from  there, 
had  observed  with  an  air:  "How  is  old  New  York  any 
way?"  And  then,  with  a  flourish:  "I'll  have  to  be  going 
over  there  pretty  soon  now.  I  haven't  been  over  in  some 


time." 


Leaving  Factoryville,  we  ran  through  country  so  beau 
tiful  that  before  long  I  regretted  sincerely  that  we  had 
done  any  traveling  after  dark  the  night  before.  We 
were  making  our  way  up  a  wide  valley  as  I  could  see,  the 
same  green  Susquehanna  Valley,  between  high  hills  and 
through  a  region  given  over  entirely  to  dairy  farming. 
The  hills  looked  as  though  they  were  bedded  knee  deep 
in  rich,  succulent  grass.  Groups  of  black  and  white 
Holstein  cattle  were  everywhere  to  be  seen.  Some  of 
the  hills  were  laid  out  in  checkerboard  fashion  by  fields 
of  grain  or  hay  or  buckwheat  or  great  thick  groves  of 
trees.  Before  many  a  farm  dooryard  was  a  platform 
on  which  stood  a  milk  can,  or  two  or  three:  now  and 
then  a  neighborhood  creamery  would  come  into  view, 
where  the  local  milk  was  churned  wholesale  and  butter 
prepared  and  shipped.  The  towns  for  the  most  part 
were  rarely  factory  towns,  looking  more  as  if  they  har 
bored  summer  boarders  or  were  but  now  starting  on  a 
manufacturing  career.  Girls  or  women  were  reading  or 
sewing  on  porches.  The  region  of  the  mines  was  far 
behind. 

And  what  a  day !  The  everchanging  panorama — how 
wonderful  it  was  I  Tr-r-r-r-r-r  and  we  were  descending 


THE  MAGIC  OF  THE  ROAD  83 

a  steep  hill,  at  the  bottom  of  which  lay  a  railroad  track 
(one  of  those  against  which  we  had  been  warned,  no 
doubt),  and  in  the  distance  more  great  hills,  sentineling 
this  wide  valley;  the  road  showing  like  a  white  thread, 
miles  and  miles  away. 

Tr-r-r-r-r-r,  and  now  we  were  passing  a  prosperous 
farmyard,  aglow  with  strident  flowers,  one  woman  sew 
ing  at  a  window,  others  talking  with  a  neighbor  at  the 
door.  Tr-r-r-r-r-r,  here  we  were  swinging  around  a  sharp 
curve,  over  an  iron  bridge,  noisy  and  shaky  and  beneath 
which  ran  a  turbulent  stream,  and  in  the  immediate  fore 
ground  was  an  old  mill  or  a  barnyard  alive  with  cattle 
and  poultry.  I  had  just  time  to  think,  "What  if  we 
should  crash  through  this  bridge  into  the  stream  below," 
when  T-r-r-r-r-r-r,  and  now  came  a  small  factory  or  foun 
dry  section  with  tall  smokestacks,  and  beyond  it  a  fair- 
sized  town,  clean,  healthy,  industrious.  No  tradition, 
you  see,  anywhere.  No  monuments  or  cathedrals  or 
great  hotels  or  any  historic  scene  anywhere  to  look  for 
ward  to :  but  Tr-r-r-r-r-r  and  here  we  are  at  the  farther 
outskirts  of  this  same  small  town  with  more  green  fields 
in  the  distance,  the  scuff  and  scar  of  manufacturing  gone 
and  only  the  blue  sky  and  endless  green  fields  and  some 
birds  flying  and  a  farmer  cutting  his  grain  with  a  great 
reaper.  Tr-r-r-r-r-r — how  the  miles  do  fly  past,  to  be 
sure! 

And  T-r-r-r-r-r-r  (these  motors  are  surely  tireless 
things),  here  is  a  lake  now,  just  showing  through  the 
tall,  straight  trunks  of  trees,  a  silvery  flash  with  a  grey 
icehouse  in  the  distance;  and  then,  Tr-r-r-r-r-r,  a  thick 
green  wall  of  woods,  so  rich  and  dark,  from  which  pour 
the  sweetest,  richest,  most  invigorating  odors  and  into 
the  depth  of  which  the  glance  sinks  only  to  find  cooler 
and  darker  shadows  and  even  ultimate  shadow  or  a  green 
blackness;  and  then — Tr-r-r-r-r — a  line  of  small  white 
cottages  facing  a  stream  and  a  boy  scuffing  his  toes  in 
the  warm,  golden  dust — oh,  happy  boyland! — and  then, 
Tr-r-r-r-r — but  why  go  on?  It  was  all  beautiful.  It  was 
all  so  refreshing.  It  was  all  like  a  song — only — Tr-r-r-r-r 


84  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

— and  here  comes  another  great  wide  spreading  view, 
which  Franklin  wishes  to  sketch.  He  has  a  large  pad 
of  some  peculiarly  white  porous  paper,  on  which  he 
works  and  from  which  he  tears  the  sketches  when  they 
are  done  and  deposits  them  in  a  convenient  portfolio. 
By  now  Speed  has  become  resigned  to  not  getting  to 
Indiana  as  fast  as  he  would  like. 

"Shucks !"  I  heard  him  say  once,  as  he  was  oiling  up 
his  engine,  "if  we  didn't  have  to  stop  this  way  every  few 
minutes,  we'd  soon  get  into  Indiana.  Give  me  half  way 
decent  roads  and  this  little  old  motor  will  eat  up  the 
miles  as  good  as  anyone.  .  .  ."  But  when  you  have  two 
loons  aboard  who  are  forever  calling  "Whoa !"  and  jump 
ing  up  or  out  or  both  and  exclaiming,  "Well  now,  what 
do  you  think  of  that? — isn't  it  beautiful?" — what  are  you 
going  to  do?  No  real  chauffeur  can  get  anywhere  that 
way — you  know  that. 

Here  we  were  now  backing  the  machine  in  the  shade 
of  a  barn  while  Franklin  fixed  himself  on  the  edge  of  a 
grey,  lichen  covered  wall  and  I  strolled  off  down  a  steep 
hill  to  get  a  better  view  of  a  railroad  which  here  ran 
through  a  granite  gorge.  Perhaps  Franklin  worked  as 
many  as  thirty  or  forty  minutes.  Perhaps  I  investigated 
even  longer.  There  was  a  field  on  this  slope  with  a  fine 
spring  on  it.  I  had  to  speculate  on  what  a  fine  pool  could 
be  made  here.  In  the  distance  some  horizon  clouds  made 
a  procession  like  ships.  I  had  to  look  at  those.  The 
spear  pines  here  at  the  edge  of  this  field  were  very  beauti 
ful  and  reminded  me  of  the  cypresses  of  Italy.  I  had 
to  speculate  as  to  the  difference.  Then  Tr-r-r-r-r-r,  and 
we  were  on  again  at  about  thirtyfive  miles  an  hour. 

While  we  were  riding  across  this  country  in  the  bright 
morning  sunshine,  Speed  fell  into  a  reminiscent  or  tale- 
telling  mood.  Countrymen  born  have  this  trait  at  times 
and  Speed  was  country  bred.  He  began,  as  I  had  al 
ready  found  was  his  way,  without  any  particular 
announcement,  or  a  "Didjah  ever  hear  of  the  old  fel 
low,"  etc.,  and  then  he  would  be  off  on  a  series  of  yarns 
the  exact  flavor  and  charm  of  which  I  cannot  hope  to 


THE  MAGIC  OF  THE  ROAD  85 

transcribe,  but  some  of  which  I  nevertheless  feel  I  must 
paraphrase  as  best  I  may. 

Thus  one  of  his  stories  concerned  a  wedding  some 
where  in  the  country.  All  the  neighbors  had  been 
invited  and  the  preacher  and  the  justice  of  the  peace. 
The  women  were  all  in  the  house  picking  wool  for  a 
pastime.  The  men  were  all  out  at  the  edge  of  the  woods 
around  a  log  heap  they  had  built,  telling  stories.  The 
bride-to-be  was  all  washed  and  starched  and  her  hair 
done  up  for  once,  and  she  was  picking  wool,  too.  When 
the  fatal  moment  came  the  preacher  and  the  prospective 
husband  came  in,  followed  by  all  the  men,  and  the  two 
stood  in  the  proper  position  for  a  wedding  before  the 
fireplace;  but  the  girl  never  moved.  She  just  called, 
"Go  on;  it'll  be  all  right."  So  the  preacher  read  or 
spoke  the  ceremony,  and  when  it  came  to  the  place  where 
he  asked  her,  "Do  you  take  this  man  to  be  your  lawful 
wedded  husband,  etc.,"  she  stopped,  took  a  chew  of 
tobacco  out  of  her  mouth,  threw  it  in  the  fire,  expecto 
rated  in  the  same  direction,  and  said,  "I  reckon."  Then 
she  went  on  working  again. 

Another  of  these  yarns  concerned  the  resurveying  of 
the  county  line  between  Brown  and  Monroe  counties  in 
Indiana  which  a  little  while  before  had  been  moved  west 
about  two  hundred  and  fifty  yards.  That  put  the  house 
of  an  old  Brown  County  farmer  about  ten  yards  over 
the  Monroe  County  line.  A  part  of  Monroe  County  in 
this  region  was  swampy  and  famous  for  chills  and  fever — 
or  infamous.  When  the  old  farmer  came  home  that 
night  his  wife  met  him  at  the  gate  and  said:  "Now  we 
just  got  tuh  move,  paw;  that's  all  there  is  to  it.  I'm 
not  goin'  to  live  over  there  in  Monroe  with  all  these 
here  swamps.  We'll  all  die  with  chills  and  yuh  know  it." 

Fishing  was  great  sport  in  some  county  in  Indiana — I 
forget  which.  They  organized  fishing  parties,  sometimes 
thirty  or  forty  in  a  drove,  and  went  fishing,  camping  out 
for  two  or  three  days  at  a  time,  only  they  weren't  so 


86  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

strong  for  hooks  and  lines,  except  for  the  mere  sport 
of  it.  To  be  sure  of  having  enough  fish  to  go  'round, 
they  always  took  a  few  sticks  of  dynamite  and  toward 
evening  or  noon  someone  would  light  a  fuse  and  attach 
it  to  a  stick  of  dynamite  and,  just  as  it  was  getting  near 
the  danger  line,  throw  it  in  the  water. 

Well,  once  upon  a  time  there  was  just  such  a  fish 
ing  party  and  they  had  a  stick  of  dynamite,  or  two  or 
three.  There  was  also  an  old  fat  hotel  man  who  had 
come  along  and  he  had  a  very  fine  big  dog  with  him — 
a  retriever — that  he  thought  a  great  deal  of.  Whenever 
anyone  would  shoot  a  duck  or  throw  a  stick  into  the 
water,  the  dog  would  go  and  get  it.  On  this  occasion 
toward  evening  someone  threw  a  stick  of  dynamite  in 
the  water  with  the  fuse  lit.  Only  instead  of  falling  in 
the  water  it  fell  on  some  brush  floating  there  and  the 
darn  fool  dog  seeing  it  jumped  in  and  began  to  swim 
out  toward  it.  They  all  commenced  to  holler  at  the 
dog  to  come  back,  but  in  vain.  He  swam  to  the  dyna 
mite  stick,  got  it  in  his  mouth,  and  started  for  shore — 
the  fuse  burning  all  the  while.  Then  they  all  ran  for 
their  lives — all  but  the  old  fat  hotel  man,  who  couldn't 
run  very  well,  though  he  did  his  best,  and  it  was  his  dog. 
He  lit  out,  though,  through  the  green  briars  and  brush, 
hollering,  "Go  home,  Tige!  Go  home,  Tige!"  at  every 
jump.  But  old  Tige  was  just  a-bounding  on  along  be 
hind  him  and  a-wagging  his  tail  and  a-shaking  the  water 
off  him.  What  saved  the  old  man  was  that  at  one  place 
the  dog  stopped  to  shake  the  water  off  and  that  gave 
him  a  fair  start,  but  he  only  missed  him  by  about  forty 
feet  at  that.  The  dog  was  just  that  near  when,  bang! 
and  say,  there  wasn't  a  thing  left  but  just  about  a  half 
inch  of  his  tail,  which  somebody  found  and  which  the 
old  man  used  to  wear  as  a  watch-charm  and  for  good 
luck.  He  always  said  it  was  mighty  good  luck  for  him 
that  the  dog  didn't  get  any  nearer. 

And  once  more  upon  a  time  there  was  a  very  stingy 
old  man  who  owned  a  field  opposite  the  railway  station 


THE  MAGIC  OF  THE  ROAD  87 

of  a  small  town.  A  shed  was  there  which  made  a  rather 
good  billboard  and  itinerant  showmen  and  medicine  men 
occasionally  posted  bills  on  it — not  without  getting  the 
permission  of  the  owner,  however,  who  invariably  ex 
tracted  tickets  or  something — medicine  even. 

One  day,  however,  the  station  agent,  who  was  idling  in 
front  of  his  office,  saw  a  man  pasting  showbills.  He 
fancied  Zeke  Peters'  (the  owner's)  permission  had  not 
been  obtained,  but  he  wasn't  sure.  It  must  be  remem 
bered  that  he  was  in  no  way  related  to  Peters.  Walking 
over  to  the  man,  he  inquired: 

"Does  paw  know  you're  putting  up  them  bills  here?" 

"Why,  no,  I  didn't  think  there'd  be  any  trouble. 
They're  only  small  bills,  as  you  see." 

The  agent  pulled  a  long  face. 

"I  know,"  he  replied,  "but  I  don't  think  paw'd  like 
this." 

The  showman  handed  him  a  ticket  for  the  circus — 
one  ticket. 

"Well,  I  don't  know  about  this,"  said  the  station  agent 
heavily.  "If  you  didn't  ask  paw,  I  don't  know  whether 
you'd  better  do  this  or  not." 

The  billposter  handed  him  another  ticket. 

"Won't  that  fix  it?"  he  asked. 

"Well,"  replied  the  agent,  seemingly  somewhat  molli 
fied,  "paw's  awful  particular,  but  I  guess  I  can  fix  it. 
I'll  try  anyhow" — and  he  walked  solemnly  back  to  the 
station. 

Old  Peters  didn't  chance  to  see  the  bills  until  a  day 
or  two  before  the  circus.  He  was  very  angry,  but  at 
this  time  there  were  no  circus  men  around  to  complain 
to.  When  the  show  came  to  town  he  looked  up  the  box- 
office  and  found  he  had  been  done.  Then  he  hurried 
to  the  agent. 

"Where's  them  tickets?"  he  demanded. 

"What  tickets?"  replied  the  agent. 

"That  you  got  from  that  billposter." 

"Well,  I'm  usin'  'em.     He  gave  'em  to  me." 


88  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 


"What  fer,  I'd  like  to  know?  It's  my  billboard,  ain't 
it?" 

"Well,  it  was  my  idea,  wasn't  it?" 

There  Speed  stopped. 

"Well,  did  he  get  the  tickets?"  I  asked. 

"Course  not.  Nobody  liked  him,  so  he  couldn't  do 
nothing." 

I  liked  the  ending  philosophy  of  this  the  best  of  all. 

And  once  upon  a  time  in  some  backwoods  county  in 
Indiana  there  was  an  election  for  president.  There 
weren't  but  sixtynine  voters  in  the  district  and  they  kept 
straggling  in  from  six  A.  M.,  when  the  polls  opened,  to 
six  P.  M.,  when  they  closed.  Then  they  all  hung  around 
to  see  how  the  vote  stood.  And  guess  how  it  stood? 

"Well?" 

"It  was  this-a-way.  W.  J.  Bryan,  15;  Andrew  Jack 
son,  12 ;  Jeff  Davis,  9;  Abraham  Lincoln,  8 ;  Thomas  Jef 
ferson,  8;  Moses,  6;  Abraham,  15;  John  the  Baptist,  3; 
Daniel  Boone,  2;  William  McKinley,  i." 

"What  about  George  Washington,  Speed?" 

"Well,  I  guess  they  musta  fergot  him." 

And,  once  more  now,  not  every  family  in  Indiana  or 
elsewhere  is  strong  for  education,  and  especially  in  the 
country.  So  once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  family — 
father  and  mother,  that  is — that  got  into  a  row  over  this 
very  thing.  An  old  couple  had  married  after  each  had 
been  married  before  and  each  had  had  children.  Only, 
now,  each  of  'em  only  had  one  son  apiece  left,  that  is, 
home  with  'em.  The  old  man  believed  in  education  and 
wanted  his  boy  educated,  whereas  the  woman  didn't. 
"No,  siree,"  she  said,  "I  don't  want  any  of  my  children 
to  ever  git  any  of  that  book  learnin'.  None  o'  the  others 
had  any  and  I  'low  as  Luke  can  git  along  just  as  well 
as  they  did." 

But  the  old  man  he  didn't  feel  quite  right  about  it  and 
somehow  his  boy  liked  books.  So,  since  he  was  really 
the  stronger  of  the  two,  he  sent  the  two  boys  off  and 


THE  MAGIC  OF  THE  ROAD  89 

made  'em  go.  The  old  woman  grieved  and  grieved.  She 
felt  as  though  her  boy  was  being  spoiled,  and  she  said  so. 

"Shucks!"  said  the  old  man,  "he'll  git  along  all  right. 
What's  the  matter  with  you,  anyhow?  If  my  boy  don't 
go  to  school  he'll  feel  bad,  and  if  I  send  him  to  school 
and  keep  yours  at  home  to  work  the  neighbors  will  talk — 
now  I  just  can't  manage  it,  that's  all." 

So  the  two  boys  kept  on  going  for  awhile  longer. 
Only  the  old  woman  kept  feelin'  worse  and  worse  about 
it.  All  at  once  one  day  she  got  to  feelin'  so  terrible 
bad  that  she  just  gathered  up  her  boy's  clothes  and  took 
him  over  to  his  grandfather's  to  live,  and  gee !  the  old 
grandfather  was  sore  about  it.  Say! 

"Send  that  boy  to  school!"  he  says.  "Never!  Why, 
he  ain't  the  same  boy  any  more  at  all  already.  I'll  be 
hanged  if  he  ain't  even  fergot  how  to  cuss,"  and  he 
wouldn't  even  let  the  boy's  fosterfather  come  near  him. 
Not  a  bit  of  it,  no  siree. 

And  once  upon  a  time,  in  the  extreme  southern  part 
of  Indiana  where  the  ice  doesn't  get  very  thick — not 
over  three  inches — there  was  a  backwoods  preacher  who 
made  a  trip  to  Evansville  and  saw  an  ice  machine  mak 
ing  ice  a  foot  thick,  and  he  came  back  and  told  his  con 
gregation  about  it. 

"Whaddy  think  of  that!"  one  of  the  old  members  ex 
claimed.  "The  Lord  can't  make  it  more'n  three  inches 
around  here,  and  he  says  men  in  Evansville  can  make  it 
a  foot  thick!" 

So  they  turned  the  old  preacher  out  for  lying,  b'gosh ! 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  an  old  Irishman  got 
on  the  train  at  Carmel,  Indiana,  and  walked  in  the  car, 
but  the  seats  were  all  taken.  One  was  occupied  by  an 
Indiana  farmer  and  his  dog.  The  Irishman  knew,  if 
he  tried  to  make  the  dog  get  down  and  give  him  the 
seat,  he  would  have  the  farmer  and  the  dog  to  fight. 

"That's  a  very  fine  darg  ye  have." 

"Yes,  stranger;  he's  the  finest  dog  in  the  county." 


90  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

"And  he  has  the  marks  of  a  good  coon  darg." 

"That's  right.  He  can  come  as  near  findin'  coons 
where  there  ain't  any  as  the  next  one." 

"What  brade  of  darg  is  he?" 

"Well,  he's  a  cross  between  an  Irishman  and  a 
skunk." 

"Bejasus,  then  he  must  be  related  to  the  both  of  us!" 

Somewhere  in  the  country  in  Indiana  they  once  built 
a  railroad  where  there  never  had  been  one  and  it 
created  great  excitement.  One  old  farmer  who  had 
lived  on  his  farm  a  great  many  years  and  had  never 
even  seen  a  train  or  a  track  and  had  raised  a  large 
family,  mostly  girls,  was  so  interested  that  he  put  his 
whole  family  in  the  wagon  and  drove  up  close  to  the 
track  so  they  could  get  a  good  view  of  the  cars  the  first 
time  they  came  through.  But  before  the  train  came  he 
got  uneasy.  He  was  afraid  the  old  grey  mare  would 
get  scared  and  run  away.  So  he  got  out,  unhitched  the 
old  horse  and  tied  it  to  a  tree,  gave  it  some  hay  and 
got  back  into  the  wagon.  Pretty  soon  he  saw  the  train 
coming  very  fast,  and  as  the  old  wagon  was  quite  close 
to  the  track  he  thought  the  train  might  jump  the  track 
and  kill  them  all,  so  he  leaped  out,  got  between  the  shafts 
and  started  to  pull  the  wagon  a  little  farther  down  the 
hill.  Just  then  the  train  neared  the  station  and  he  got 
so  excited  that  he  lost  all  control  of  himself  and  away 
he  went  down  the  hill,  lickety  split.  He  ran  upon  a 
stump,  upset  the  wagon  and  threw  the  old  woman  and 
all  the  children  out,  and  hurt  them  worse  than  ever 
the  old  mare  would  have.  The  old  woman  was  furi 
ous.  She  didn't  have  any  bridle  on  him  and  while  he  was 
running  she  missed  seeing  the  train. 

"Gol  darn  you,"  she  hollered,  "if  I  didn't  have  a 
sprained  ankle  now,  I'd  fix  you — runnin'  away  like  the 
crazy  old  fool  that  you  are !" 

"That's  all  right,  Maria,"  he  called  back  meekly.  "I 
was  a  leetle  excited,  I'll  admit;  but  next  week  when 
the  train  goes  through  again  you  and  the  children  kin 


THE  MAGIC  OF  THE  ROAD  91 

come  down  and  I'll  stay  to  home.    I  just  can't  stand  these 
newfangled  things,  I  reckon." 

And  once  upon  a  time  (and  this  is  the  last  one  for  the 
present)  there  was  a  real  wildcat  fight  somewhere — a 
most  wonderful  wildcat  fight.  An  old  farmer  was  sit 
ting  on  a  fence  hoeing  corn — that's  the  way  they  hoe 
corn  in  some  places — and  all  at  once  he  saw  two  Thomas 
wildcats  approaching  each  other  from  different  direc 
tions  and  swiftly.  He  was  about  to  jump  down  and  run 
when  suddenly  the  cats  came  together.  It  was  all  so 
swift  that  he  scarcely  had  time  to  move.  They  came 
along  on  their  hind  feet  and  when  they  got  together 
each  one  began  to  claw  and  climb  up  the  other.  In  fif 
teen  minutes  they  were  out  of  sight  in  the  air,  each 
one  climbing  rapidly  up  the  other;  but  he  could  hear 
them  squalling  for  two  hours  after  they  were  out  of 
sight,  and  froth  and  hair  fell  for  two  days! 


CHAPTER  XII 

RAILROADS  AND  A  NEW  WONDER  OF  THE  WORLD 

IT  wouldn't  surprise  me  in  the  least  if  the  automobile, 
as  it  is  being  perfected  now,  would  make  over  the  whole 
world's  railway  systems  into  something  very  different 
from  what  they  are  today.  Already  the  railways  are 
complaining  that  the  automobile  is  seriously  injuring 
business,  and  this  is  not  difficult  to  understand.  It  ought 
to  be  so.  At  best  the  railways  have  become  huge,  clumsy, 
unwieldy  affairs  little  suited  to  the  temperamental  needs 
and  moods  of  the  average  human  being.  They  are  mass 
carriers,  freight  handlers,  great  hurry  conveniences  for 
overburdened  commercial  minds,  but  little  more.  After 
all,  travel,  however  much  it  may  be  a  matter  of  necessity, 
is  in  most  instances,  or  should  be,  a  matter  of  pleasure. 
If  not,  why  go  forth  to  roam  the  world  so  wide?  Are 
not  trees,  flowers,  attractive  scenes,  great  mountains,  in 
teresting  cities,  and  streets  and  terminals  the  objective? 
If  not,  why  not?  Should  the  discomforts  become  too 
great,  as  in  the  case  of  the  majority  of  railroads,  and 
any  reasonable  substitute  offer  itself,  as  the  automobile, 
the  old  form  of  conveyance  will  assuredly  have  to  give 
way. 

Think  what  you  have  to  endure  en  the  ordinary  rail 
road — and  what  other  kind  is  there — smoke,  dust,  cin 
ders,  noise,  the  hurrying  of  masses  of  people,  the  ring 
ing  of  bells,  the  tooting  of  whistles,  the  brashness  and 
discourtesy  of  employes,  cattle  trains,  coal  trains,  fruit 
trains,  milk  trains  in  endless  procession — and  then  they 
tell  you  that  these  are  necessary  in  order  to  give  you  the 
service  you  get.  Actually  our  huge  railways  are  becom 
ing  so  freight  logged  and  trainyard  and  train  terminal 
infested,  and  four  tracked  and  cinder  blown,  that  they 
are  a  nuisance. 

92 


A  NEW  WONDER  OF  THE  WORLD       93 

Contrast  travel  by  railroad  with  the  charm  of  such 
a  trip  as  we  were  now  making.  Before  the  automobile, 
this  trip,  if  it  had  been  made  at  all,  would  have  had  to 
be  made  by  train — in  part  at  least.  I  would  not  have 
ridden  a  horse  or  in  any  carriage  to  Indiana — whatever 
I  might  have  done  after  I  reached  there.  Instead  of 
green  fields  and  pleasant  ways,  with  the  pleasure  of  stop 
ping  anywhere  and  proceeding  at  our  leisure,  substitute 
the  necessity  of  riding  over  a  fixed  route,  which  once  or 
twice  seen,  or  ten  times,  as  in  my  case,  had  already  be 
come  an  old  story.  For  this  is  one  of  the  drawbacks  to 
modern  railroading,  in  addition  to  all  its  other  defects — 
it  is  so  fixed;  it  has  no  latitude,  no  elasticity.  Who  wants 
to  see  the  same  old  scenes  over  and  over  and  over? 
One  can  go  up  the  Hudson  or  over  the  Alleghanies  or 
through  the  Grand  Canyon  of  the  Arizona  once  or  twice, 
but  if  you  have  to  go  that  way  always,  if  you  go  at 

all But  the  prospect  of  new  and  varied  roads,  and 

of  that  intimate  contact  with  woodland  silences,  grassy 
slopes,  sudden  and  sheer  vistas  at  sharp  turns,  streams 
not  followed  by  endless  lines  of  cars — of  being  able  to 
change  your  mind  and  go  by  this  route  or  that  according 
to  your  mood — what  a  difference !  These  constitute 
a  measureless  superiority.  And  the  cost  per  mile  is  not 
so  vastly  much  more  by  automobile.  Today  it  is  actually 
making  travel  cheaper  and  quicker.  Whether  for  a  long 
tour  or  a  short  one,  it  appears  to  make  man  independent 
and  give  him  a  choice  of  life,  which  he  must  naturally 
prefer.  Only  the  dull  can  love  sameness. 

North  of  Factoryville  a  little  way — perhaps  a  score 
of  miles — we  encountered  one  of  these  amazing  works 
of  man  which,  if  they  become  numerous  enough,  eventu 
ally  make  a  country  a  great  memory.  They  are  the  bones 
or  articulatory  ligaments  of  the  body  politic  which,  like 
the  roads  and  viaducts  and  baths  of  ancient  Rome,  testify 
to  the  prime  of  its  physical  strength  and  after  its  death 
lie  like  whitening  bones  about  the  fields  of  the  world 
which  once  it  occupied. 

We  were  coming  around  a  curve  near  Nicholsen,  Penn- 


94  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

sylvania,  approaching  a  stream  which  traversed  this  great 
valley,  when  across  it  from  ridge's  edge  to  ridge's  edge 
suddenly  appeared  a  great  white  stone  or  concrete  via 
duct  or  bridge — we  could  not  tell  at  once  which — a  thing 
so  colossal  and  impressive  that  we  instantly  had  Speed 
stop  the  car  so  that  we  might  remain  and  gaze  at  it. 
Ten  huge  arches — each  say  two  hundred  feet  wide  and 
two  hundred  feet  high — were  topped  by  eleven  other 
arches  say  fifteen  feet  wride  and  forty  feet  high,  and  this 
whole  surmounted  by  a  great  roadbed  carrying  several 
railway  tracks,  we  assumed.  The  builders  were  still  at 
work  on  it.  As  before  the  great  Cathedral  at  Rouen  or 
Amiens  or  Canterbury,  or  those  giant  baths  in  Rome 
which  so  gratify  the  imagination,  so  here,  at  Nicholsen, 
in  a  valley  celebrated  for  nothing  in  particular  and  at 
the  edge  of  a  town  of  no  size,  we  stood  before  this  vast 
structure,  gazing  in  a  kind  of  awe.  These  arches  1  How 
really  beautiful  they  were,  how  wide,  how  high,  how 
noble,  how  symmetrically  planned!  And  the  smaller 
arches  above,  for  all  the  actually  huge  size,  how  delicate 
and  lightsomely  graceful !  How  could  they  carry  a  heavy 
train  so  high  in  the  air?  But  there  they  were,  nearly 
two  hundred  and  forty  feet  above  us  from  the  stream's 
surface,  as  we  discovered  afterwards,  and  the  whole 
structure  nearly  twentyfour  hundred  feet  long.  We 
learned  that  it  was  the  work  of  a  great  railroad  corpora 
tion — a  part  of  a  scheme  for  straightening  and  shorten 
ing  its  line  about  three  miles ! — which  incidentally  was 
leaving  a  monument  to  the  American  of  this  day  which 
would  be  stared  at  in  centuries  to  come  as  evidencing  the 
courage,  the  resourcefulness,  the  taste,  the  wealth,  the 
commerce  and  the  force  of  the  time  in  which  we  are 
living — now. 

It  is  rather  odd  to  stand  in  the  presence  of  so  great 
a  thing  in  the  making  and  realize  that  you  are  looking 
at  one  of  the  true  wonders  of  the  world.  As  I  did  so  I 
could  not  help  thinking  of  all  the  great  wonders 
America  has  already  produced — capitals,  halls,  universi 
ties,  bridges,  monuments,  water  flumes,  sea  walls,  dams, 


THE    GREAT    BRIDGE    AT    NICHOLSEN 


A  NEW  WONDER  OF  THE  WORLD      95 

towering  structures — yet  the  thought  came  to  me  how 
little  of  all  that  will  yet  be  accomplished  have  we  seen. 
What  towers,  what  bridges,  what  palaces,  what  roads 
will  not  yet  come!  Numerous  as  these  great  things 
already  are — a  statue  of  Lincoln  in  Chicago,  a  building 
by  Woolworth  in  New  York,  a  sea  wall  at  Galveston,  an 
Ashokan  dam  in  the  Catskills,  this  bridge  at  Nicholsen 
— yet  in  times  to  come  there  will  be  thousands  of  these 
wonders — possibly  hundreds  of  thousands  where  now 
there  are  hundreds.  A  great  free  people  is  hard  at  work 
day  after  day  building,  building,  building — and  for 
what?  Sometimes  I  think,  like  the  forces  and  processes 
which  produce  embryonic  life  here  or  the  coral  islands 
in  the  Pacific,  vast  intelligences  and  personalities  are  at 
work,  producing  worlds  and  nations.  As  a  child  is 
builded  in  the  womb,  so  is  a  star.  We  socalled  indi 
viduals  are  probably  no  more  than  mere  cell  forms  con 
structing  something  in  whose  subsequent  movements,  pas 
sions,  powers  we  shall  have  no  share  whatsoever.  Does 
the  momentary  cell  life  in  the  womb  show  in  the  sub 
sequent  powers  of  the  man?  Will  we  show  in  the  subse 
quent  life  of  the  nation  that  we  have  helped  build? 
When  one  thinks  of  how  little  of  all  that  is  or  will  be 
one  has  any  part  in — are  we  not  such  stuff  as  dreams  are 
made  of,  and  can  we  feel  anything  but  a  slave's  resig 
nation? 

While  we  were  sightseeing,  Speed  was  conducting  a 
social  conference  of  his  own  in  the  shade  of  some  trees 
in  one  of  the  quiet  streets  of  Nicholsen.  I  think  I  have 
never  seen  anyone  with  a  greater  innate  attraction  for 
boys.  Speed  was  only  twentyfive  himself.  Boys  seemed 
to  understand  Speed  and  to  be  hail-fellow-well-met  with 
him,  wherever  he  was.  In  Dover,  at  the  Water  Gap, 
in  Wilkes-Barre,  Scranton — wherever  we  chanced  to 
stop,  there  was  a  boy  or  boys.  He  or  they  drew  near 
and  a  general  conversation  ensued.  In  so  far  as  I  could 
see,  the  mystery  consisted  of  nothing  more  than  a  natural 
ability  on  Speed's  part  to  take  them  at  their  own  value 


96  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

and  on  their  own  terms.  He  was  just  like  any  other 
boy  among  them,  questioning  and  answering  quite  as 
if  he  and  they  were  all  grownups  and  very  serious.  Here 
in  Nicholsen,  as  we  came  back,  no  less  than  five  young 
sters  were  explaining  to  him  all  the  facts  and  wonders 
of  the  great  bridge. 

"Yes,  and  one  man  fell  from  the  top  of  them  there 
little  arches  way  up  there  last  winter  down  to  the  back 
of  the  big  arch  and  he  almost  died." 

"Those  little  arches  are  forty  feet  above  the  big  ones," 
another  went  on. 

"Yes,  but  he  didn't  die,"  put  in  another  informatively. 
"He  just,  now,  broke  his  back.  But  he  almost  died, 
though.  He  can't  do  any  more  work." 

"That's  too  bad,"  I  said,  "and  how  does  he  manage 
to  live  now?" 

"Well,  his  wife  supports  him,  I  believe,"  put  in  one 
quietly. 

"He's  goin'  to  get  a  pension,  though,"  said  another. 

"There's  a  law  now  or  something,"  volunteered  a 
fourth.  "They  have  to  give  him  money." 

"Oh,  I  see,"  I  said.  "That's  fine.  Can  any  of  you  tell 
me  how  wide  those  arches  are — those  big  arches?" 

"One  hundred  and  eighty  feet  wide  and  two  hundred 
feet  high,"  volunteered  one  boy. 

"And  the  little  arches  are  sixteen  feet  and  three  inches 
wide  and  forty  feet  high,"  put  in  another. 

"And  how  long  is  it?" 

"Two  thousand,  three  hundred  and  ninetyfive  feet 
from  ridge  to  ridge,"  came  with  schoolboy  promtpness 
from  three  at  once. 

I  was  flabbergasted. 

"How  do  you  know  all  this?"  I  inquired. 

"We  learned  it  at  school,"  said  two.  "Our  teacher 
knows." 

I  was  so  entertained  by  the  general  spirit  of  this  group 
that  I  wanted  to  stay  awhile  and  listen  to  them.  Ameri 
can  boys — I  know  nothing  of  foreign  ones — are  so  frank, 
free  and  generally  intelligent.  There  was  not  the  slight- 


A  NEW  WONDER  OF  THE  WORLD       97 

est  air  of  sycophancy  about  this  group.  They  were  not 
seeking  anything  save  temporary  entertainment.  Some 
of  them  wanted  to  ride  a  little  way, — perhaps  to  the 
nearest  store — but  only  a  little  way  and  then  only  when 
invited.  They  all  looked  so  bright,  and  yet  in  this  group 
you  could  easily  detect  the  varying  characteristics  which, 
other  things  being  equal,  would  make  some  successes 
materially  and  others  failures,  possibly.  Here  was  the 
comparatively  dull  boy,  the  bashful  boy,  the  shrewd  boy, 
the  easy  going,  pleasure  loving  boy.  You  could  see  it  in 
their  eyes.  One  of  them,  a  tallish,  leanish  youth,  had 
instantly  on  the  appearance  of  Franklin  and  myself 
crowded  the  others  back  and  stood  closest,  his  shrewd, 
examining  eyes  taking  in  all  our  characteristics.  By 
looking  into  his  eyes  I  could  see  how  shrewd,  inde 
pendent,  and  selfprotective  he  was.  He  was  not  in  the 
least  overawed  like  some  of  the  others,  but  rather  supe 
rior,  like  one  who  would  have  driven  a  clever  bargain 
with  us,  if  he  might  have,  and  worsted  us  at  it. 

Except  for  this  bridge  and  these  children,  Nicholsen 
held  nothing,  at  least  nothing  obvious.  It  was  just  a 
small  town  with  retail  stores,  at  one  of  which,  a  drug 
gist's,  we  stopped  for  picture  cards.  One  would  have 
supposed,  with  so  vast  a  thing  as  this  bridge,  there  would 
have  been  excellent  photographs  of  it;  but  no,  there  was 
none  that  was  really  good.  The  main  street,  some  coun 
try  roads,  a  wheat  field  which  some  rural  poet  had 
snapped — that  was  all.  This  country  druggist's  store 
was  very  flyspecked.  I  wished  for  Nicholsen's  sake,  as 
well  as  for  my  own,  that  something  worthy  had  been 
prepared,  which  the  sightseeing  public  might  take  away 
as  a  memento. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

A   COUNTRY    HOTEL 

BEYOND  Nicholsen,  somewhere  in  this  same  wondrous 
valley  and  in  a  winelike  atmosphere,  came  New  Milford 
and  with  it  our  noonday  meal.  We  were  rolling  along 
aimlessly,  uncertain  where  next  we  would  pause.  The 
sight  of  an  old  fashioned  white  hotel  at  a  street  corner 
with  several  rurals  standing  about  and  a  row  of  beau 
tiful  elms  over  the  way  gave  us  our  cue.  "This  looks 
rather  inviting,"  said  Franklin;  and  then,  to  the  figure 
of  a  heavy  nondescript  in  brown  jeans  who  was  sitting 
on  a  chair  outside  in  the  shade : 

"Can't  we  get  something  to  eat  here?" 

"You  can,"  replied  the  countryman  succintly;  "they'll 
be  putting  dinner  on  the  table  in  a  few  minutes." 

We  went  into  the  bar,  Franklin's  invariable  opening 
for  these  meals  being  a  cocktail,  when  he  could  get  one. 
It  was  a  cleanly  room,  but  with  such  a  field  hand 
atmosphere  about  those  present  that  I  was  a  little  dis 
appointed,  and  yet  interested.  I  always  feel  about  most 
American  country  saloons  that  they  are  patronized  by 
ditchers  and  men  who  do  the  rough  underpaid  work  of 
villages,  while  in  England  and  France  I  had  a  very  dif 
ferent  feeling. 

I  was  much  interested  here  by  the  proprietor,  or,  as 
he  turned  out  afterward,  one  of  two  brothers  who  owned 
the  hotel.  He  was  an  elderly  man,  stout  and  serious, 
who  in  another  place  perhaps  and  with  a  slightly  dif 
ferent  start  in  life  might,  I  am  sure,  have  been  banker, 
railroad  offcer,  or  director.  He  was  so  circumspect, 
polite,  regardful.  He  came  to  inquire  in  a  serious  way 
if  we  were  going  to  take  dinner?  We  were. 

"You  can  come  right  in  whenever  you  are  ready," 
he  commented. 

98 


A  COUNTRY  HOTEL  99 

Something  in  his  tone  and  presence  touched  me 
pleasantly. 

Beause  of  the  great  heat — it  was  blazing  outside — I 
had  left  my  coat  in  the  car  and  was  arrayed  in  a  brown 
khaki  shirt  and  grey  woolen  trousers,  with  a  belt.  Be 
cause  of  the  heat  it  did  not  occur  to  me  that  my  appear 
ance  would  not  pass  muster.  But,  no.  Life's  little  rules 
of  conduct  are  not  so  easily  set  aside,  even  in  a  country 
hotel.  As  I  neared  the  diningroom  door  and  was  pass 
ing  the  coatrack,  mine  host  appeared  and,  with  a  grace 
and  tact  which  I  have  nowhere  seen  surpassed,  and  in 
a  voice  which  instantly  obviated  all  possibility  of  a  dis 
agreeable  retort,  he  presented  me  a  coat  which  he  had 
taken  from  a  hook  and,  holding  it  ready,  said:  "Would 
you  mind  slipping  into  this?" 

uPardon  me,"  I  said,  "I  have  a  coat  in  the  car;  I  will 
get  that" 

"Don't  trouble,"  he  said  gently;  "you  can  wear  this  if 
you  like.  It  will  do." 

I  had  to  smile,  but  in  an  entirely  friendly  way.  Some 
thing  about  the  man's  manner  made  me  ashamed  of  my 
self — not  that  it  would  have  been  such  a  dreadful  thing 
to  have  gone  into  the  diningroom  looking  as  I  was, 
for  I  was  entirely  presentable,  but  that  I  had  not  taken 
greater  thought  to  respect  his  conventions  more.  He 
was  a  gentleman  running  a  country  hotel — a  real  gen 
tleman.  I  was  the  brash,  smart  asininity  from  the  city 
seeking  to  have  my  own  way  in  the  country  because  the 
city  looks  down  on  the  country.  It  hurt  me  a  little  and 
yet  I  felt  repaid  by  having  encountered  a  man  who  could 
fence  so  skilfully  with  the  little  and  yet  irritable  and 
no  doubt  difficult  problems  of  his  daily  life.  I  wanted 
to  make  friends  with  him,  for  I  could  see  so  plainly  that 
he  was  really  above  the  thing  he  was  doing  and  yet  con 
tent  in  some  philosophical  way  to  make  the  best  of  it. 
How  this  man  came  to  be  running  a  country  hotel,  with 
a  bar  attached,  I  should  like  to  know. 

After  luncheon,  I  fell  into  a  conversation  with  him, 
brief  but  interesting.  He  had  lived  here  many  years. 


ioo  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

The  place  over  the  way  with  the  beautiful  trees  belonged 
to  a  former  congressman.  (I  could  see  the  forgotten 
dignitary  making  the  best  of  his  former  laurels  in 
this  out-of-the-way  place.)  New  Milford,  a  very  old 
place,  had  been  hurt  by  the  growth  of  other  towns. 
But  now  the  automobile  was  beginning  to  do  something 
for  it.  Last  Sunday  six  hundred  machines  had  passed 
through  here.  Only  last  week  the  town  had  voted  to 
pave  the  principal  street,  in  order  to  attract  further 
travel.  One  could  see  by  mine  host's  manner  that  his 
hotel  business  was  picking  up.  I  venture  to  say  he  of 
fered  to  contribute  liberally  to  the  expense,  so  far  as  his 
ability  would  permit. 

I  could  not  help  thinking  of  this  man  as  we  rode  away, 
and  I  have  been  thinking  of  him  from  time  to  time  ever 
since.     He  was  so  simple,  so  sincere,  so  honorably  dull 
or  conventional.     I  wish  that  I  could  believe  there  are 
thousands  of  such  men  in  the  world.    His  hotel  was  taste 
less;  so  are  the  vast  majority  of  other  hotels,  and  homes 
too,  in  America.     The  dining  room  was  execrable  from 
one  point  of  view;  naive,  and  pleasingly  so,  from  an 
other.     One  could  feel  the  desire  to  "set  a  good  table" 
and  give  a  decent  meal.     The  general  ingredients  were 
good  as  far  as  they  went,  but,  alas !  the  average  Ameri 
can  does  not  make  a  good  servant — for  the  public.    The 
girl  who  waited  on  us  was  a  poor  slip,  well  intentioned 
enough,  I  am  sure,  but  without  the  first  idea  of  what  to 
do.     I  could  see  her  being  selected  by  mine  host  because 
she  was  a  good  girl,  or  because  her  mother  was  poor 
and   needed   the   money — never  because   she   had  been 
;  trained  to  do  the  things  she  was  expected  to  do.    Ameri- 
i  cans  live  in  a  world  of  sentiment  in  spite  of  all  their 
'  business  acumen,   and  somehow  expect  God  to  reward 
good  intentions  with  perfect  results.     I  adore  the  spirit, 
but  I  grieve  for  its  inutility.     No  doubt  this  girl  was 
dreaming  (all  the  time  she  was  waiting  on  us)   of  some 
four-corners  merry-go-round  where  her  beau  would  be 
waiting.     Dear,  naive  America !     When  will  it  be  differ- 


A  COUNTRY  HOTEL  101 

ent  from  a  dreaming  child,  and,  if  ever  that  time  arrives, 
shall  we  ever  like  it  as  much  again? 

And  then  came  Halstead  and  Binghamton,  for  we 
were  getting  on.  I  never  saw  a  finer  day  nor  ever 
enjoyed  one  more.  Imagine  smooth  roads,  a  blue  sky, 
white  and  black  cattle  on  the  hills,  lovely  farms,  the  rich 
green  woods  and  yellow  grainfields  of  a  fecund  August. 
Life  was  going  by  in  a  Monticelli-esque  mood.  Door- 
yards  and  houses  seemed  to  be  a  compound  of  blowing 
curtains,  cool  deep  shadows,  women  in  summery  dresses 
reading,  and  then  an  arabesque  of  bright  flowers,  golden- 
glow,  canna,  flowering  sage,  sweet  elyssum,  geraniums 
and  sunflowers.  At  Halstead  we  passed  an  hotel  facing 
the  Susquehanna  River,  which  seemed  to  me  the  ideal  of 
what  a  summer  hotel  should  be — gay  with  yellow  and 
white  awnings  and  airy  balconies  and  painted  with  flow 
ers.  Before  it  was  this  blue  river,  a  lovely  thing,  with 
canoes  and  trees  and  a  sense  of  summer  life. 

Beyond,  on  a  smooth  white  road,  we  met  a  man  who 
was  selling  some  kind  of  soap — a  soap  especially  good 
for  motorists.  He  came  to  us  out  of  Binghamton,  driv 
ing  an  old  ramshackle  vehicle,  and  hailed  us  as  we  were 
pausing  to  examine  something.  He  was  a  tall,  lean, 
shabby  American,  clothed  in  an  ancient  frock  coat  and 
soft  rumpled  felt  hat,  and  looked  like  some  small-town 
carpenter  or  bricklayer  or  maker  of  cement  walks.  By 
his  side  sat  a  youngish  man,  who  looked  nothing  and 
said  nothing,  taking  no  part  in  what  followed.  He  had 
a  dreamy,  speculative  and  yet  harassed  look,  made  all 
the  more  emphatic  by  a  long  pointed  nose  and  narrow 
pointed  chin. 

"I've  got  something  here  I'd  like  to  show  you,  gentle 
men,"  he  called,  drawing  rein  and  looking  hopefully 
at  Franklin  and  Speed. 

"Well,  we're  always  willing  to  look  at  something 
once,"  replied  Franklin  cheerfully  and  in  a  bantering 
tone. 

"Very  well,  gentlemen,"  said  the  stranger,  "you're  just 


102  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

the  people  Fm  looking  for,  and  you'll  be  glad  you've  met 
me."  Even  as  he  spoke  he  had  been  reaching  under 
the  seat  and  produced  a  small  can  of  something  which 
he  now  held  dramatically  aloft.  "It's  the  finest  thing  in 
the  way  of  a  hand  or  machine  soap  that  has  ever  been 
invented,  no  akali  (he  did  not  seem  to  know  there  were 
two  Is  in  the  word),  good  for  man  or  woman.  Won't 
soil  the  most  delicate  fabric  or  injure  the  daintiest  hands. 
I  know,  now,  for  I've  been  working  on  this  for  the  last 
three  years.  It's  my  personal,  private  invention.  The 
basis  of  it  is  cornmeal  and  healing,  soothing  oils.  You 
rub  it  on  your  hands  before  you  put  them  in  water  and 
it  takes  off  all  these  spots  and  stains  that  come  from 
machine  oil  and  that  ordinary  turpentine  won't  take  out. 
It  softens  them  right  up.  Have  you  got  any  oil  stains?" 
he  continued,  seizing  one  of  Speed's  genial  hands.  "Very 
good.  This  will  take  it  right  out.  You  haven't  any 
water  in  there,  have  you,  or  a  pan?  Never  mind.  I'm 
sure  this  lady  up  here  in  this  house  will  let  me  have 
some,"  and  off  he  hustled  with  the  air  of  a  proselytizing 
religionist. 

I  was  interested.  So  much  enthusiasm  for  so  humble 
a  thing  as  a  soap  aroused  me.  Besides  he  was  curious 
to  look  at — a  long,  lean,  shambling  zealot.  He  was  so 
zealous,  so  earnest,  so  amusing,  if  you  please,  or  hope 
less.  "Here  really,"  I  said,  "is  the  basis  of  all  zealotry, 
of  all  hopeless  invention,  of  struggle  and  dreams  never 
to  be  fulfilled."  He  looked  exactly  like  the  average  in 
ventor  who  is  destined  to  invent  and  invent  and  invent 
and  never  succeed  in  anything. 

"Well,  there  is  character  there,  anyhow,"  said  Frank 
lin.  "That  long  nose,  that  thin  dusty  coat,  that  watery 
blue,  inventive  eye — all  mountebanks  and  charlatans  and 
street  corner  fakers  have  something  of  this  man  in  them 
— and  yet " 

He  came  hustling  back. 

"Here  you  are  now!"  he  exclaimed,  as  he  put  down 
a  small  washpan  full  of  water.  "Now  you  just  take  this 
and  rub  it  in  good.  Don't  be  afraid;  it  won't  hurt  the 


A  COUNTRY  HOTEL  103 

finest  fabric  or  skin.  I  know  what  all  the  ingredients 
are.  I  worked  on  it  three  years  before  I  discovered  it. 
Everybody  in  Binghamton  knows  me.  If  it  don't  work, 
just  write  me  at  any  time  and  you  can  get  your  money 
back." 

In  his  eager  routine  presentation  of  his  material  he 
seemed  to  forget  that  we  were  present,  here  and  now, 
and  could  demand  our  money  back  before  he  left. 
In  a  fitting  spirit  of  camaraderie  Speed  rubbed  the  soap 
on  his  hands  and  spots  which  had  for  several  days  de 
fied  ordinary  soap-cleansing  processes  immediately  disap 
peared.  Similarly,  Franklin,  who  had  acquired  a  few  stains, 
salved  his  hands.  He  washed  them  in  the  pan  of  water 
standing  on  the  engine  box,  and  declared  the  soap  a 
success.  From  my  lofty  perch  in  the  car  I  now  said 
to  Mr.  Vallaurs  (the  name  on  the  label  of  the  bottle), 
"Well,  now  you've  made  fifteen  cents." 

uNot  quite,"  he  corrected,  with  the  eye  of  a  holy 
disputant.  "There  are  eight  ingredients  in  that  besides 
the  cornmeal  and  the  bottle  alone  costs  me  four  and 
one-half  cents." 

"Is  that  so?"  I  continued — unable  to  take  him  seri 
ously  and  yet  sympathizing  with  him,  he  seemed  so  futile 
and  so  prodigal  of  his  energy.  "Then  I  really  suppose 
you  don't  make  much  of  anything?" 

"Oh,  yes,  I  do,"  he  replied,  seemingly  unconscious  of 
my  jesting  mood,  and  trying  to  be  exact  in  the  inter 
pretation  of  his  profit.  "I  make  a  little,  of  course.  I'm 
only  introducing  it  now,  and  it  takes  about  all  I  make 
to  get  it  around.  I've  got  it  in  all  the  stores  of  Bing 
hamton.  I've  been  in  the  chemical  business  for  years 
now.  I  got  up  some  perfumes  here  a  few  years  ago,  but 
some  fellows  in  the  wholesale  business  did  me  out  of 
them." 

"I  see,"  I  said,  trying  to  tease  him  and  so  bring  forth 
any  latent  animosity  which  he  might  be  concealing  against 
fate  or  life.  He  looked  to  me  to  be  a  man  who  had 
been  kicked  about  from  pillar  to  post.  "Well,  when  you 
get  this  well  started  and  it  looks  as  though  it  would  be 


io4  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

a  real  success,  some  big  soap  or  chemical  manufacturer 
will  come  along  and  take  it  away  from  you.  You  won't 
make  anything  out  of  it." 

"Won't  I?"  he  rejoined  defiantly,  taking  me  with  en 
tire  seriousness  and  developing  a  flash  of  opposition  in 
his  eyes.  "No,  he  won't,  either.  I've  had  that  done  to 
me  before,  but  it  won't  happen  this  time.  I  know  the 
tricks  of  them  sharps.  I've  got  all  this  patented.  The 
last  time  I  only  had  my  application  in.  That's  why  I'm 
out  here  on  this  road  today  interducin'  this  myself.  I 
lost  the  other  company  I  was  interested  in.  But  I'm 
going  to  take  better  care  of  this  one.  I  want  to  see  that 
it  gets  a  good  start." 

He  seemed  a  little  like  an  animated  scarecrow  in  his 
mood. 

"Oh,  I  know,"  I  continued  dolefully,  but  purely  in  a 
jesting  way,  "but  they'll  get  you,  anyhow.  They'll  swal 
low  you  whole.  You're  only  a  beginner;  you're  all  right 
now,  so  long  as  your  business  is  small,  but  just  wait  until 
it  looks  good  enough  to  fight  for  and  they'll  come  and 
take  it  away  from  you.  They'll  steal  or  imitate  it,  and 
if  you  say  anything  they'll  look  up  your  past  and  have 
you  arrested  for  something  you  did  twenty  or  thirty 
years  ago  in  Oshkosh  or  Oskaloosa.  Then  they'll  have 
your  first  wife  show  up  and  charge  you  with  bigamy  or 
they'll  prove  that  you  stole  a  horse  or  something.  Sure 
— they'll  get  it  away  from  you,"  I  concluded. 

"No,  they  won't  either,"  he  insisted,  a  faint  suspi 
cion  that  I  was  joking  with  him  beginning  to  dawn  on 
him.  "I  ain't  never  had  but  one  wife  and  I  never  stole 
any  horses.  I've  got  this  patented  now  and  I'll  make 
some  money  out  of  it,  I  think.  It's  the  best  soap" — (and 
here  as  he  thought  of  his  invention  once  more  his  brow 
cleared  and  his  enthusiasm  rose) — "the  most  all-round 
useful  article  that  has  ever  been  put  on  the  market.  You 
gentlemen  ought  really  to  take  a  thirty-cent  bottle" — 
he  went  back  and  produced  a  large  one — "it  will  last  you 
a  lifetime.  I  guarantee  it  not  to  soil,  mar  or  injure  the 
finest  fabric  or  skin.  Cornmeal  is  the  chief  ingredient 


A  COUNTRY  HOTEL  105 

and  eight  other  chemicals,  no  akali.  I  wish  you'd  take 
a  few  of  my  cards" — he  produced  a  handful  of  these — 
"and  if  you  find  anyone  along  the  road  who  stands  in 
need  of  a  thing  of  this  kind  I  wish  you'd  just  be  good 
enough  to  give  'em  one  so's  they'll  know  where  to  write. 
I'm  right  here  in  Binghamton.  I've  been  here  now  for 
twenty  years  or  more.  Every  druggist  knows  me." 

He  looked  at  us  with  an  unconsciously  speculative  eye 
— as  though  he  were  wondering  what  service  we  would 
be  to  him. 

Franklin  took  the  cards  and  gave  him  fifteen  cents. 
Speed  was  still  washing  his  hands,  some  new  recalcitrant 
spots  having  been  discovered.  I  watched  the  man  as  he 
proceeded  to  his  rattletrap  vehicle. 

"Well,  gentlemen,  I'll  be  saying  good  day  to  you. 
Will  you  be  so  kind  as  to  return  that  pan  to  that  lady 
up  there,  when  you're  through  with  it?  She  was  very 
accommodating  about  it." 

"Certainly,  certainly,"  replied  Franklin,  "we'll  attend 


to  it." 


Once  he  had  gone  there  ensued  a  long  discussion  of 
inventors  and  their  fates.  Here  was  this  one,  fifty  years 
of  age,  if  he  was  a  day,  and  out  on  the  public  road,  ad 
vertising  a  small  soap  which  could  not  possibly  bring  him 
the  reward  he  desired  soon. 

"You  see,  he's  going  the  wrong  way  about  it,"  Frank 
lin  said.  "He's  putting  the  emphasis  on  what  he  can 
do  personally,  when  he  ought  to  be  seeing  about  what 
others  can  do  for  him;  he  should  be  directing  as  a  man 
ager,  instead  of  working  as  a  salesman.  And  another 
thing,  he  places  too  much  emphasis  upon  local  standards 
ever  to  become  broadly  successful.  He  said  over  and 
over  that  all  the  druggists  and  automobile  supply  houses 
in  Binghamton  handle  his  soap.  That's  nothing  to  us. 
We  are,  as  it  were,  overland  citizens  and  the  judgments 
of  Binghamton  do  not  convince  us  of  anything  any  more 
than  the  judgments  of  other  towns  and  crossroad  com 
munities  along  our  route.  Every  little  community  has 
its  standards  and  its  locally  successful  ones.  The  thing 


106  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

that  will  determine  actual  success  is  a  man's  ability  or 
inability  to  see  outside  and  put  upon  himself  the  test 
of  a  standard  peculiar  to  no  one  community  but  common 
to  all.  This  man  was  not  only  apparently  somewhat  mys 
tified  tynen  we  asked  him  what  scheme  he  had  to  reach 
the  broader  market  with  his  soap;  he  appeared  never 
to  have  approached  in  his  own  mind  that  possibility  at 
all.  So  he  could  never  become  more  than  partially  suc 
cessful  or  rich." 

"Very  true,"  I  assented,  "but  a  really  capable  man 
wouldn't  work  for  him.  He'd  consider  him  too  futile 
and  try  to  take  his  treasure  away  from  him  and  then  the 
poor  creature  would  be  just  where  he  was  before,  com 
pelled  to  invent  something  else.  Any  man  who  would 
work  for  him  wouldn't  actually  be  worth  having.  It 
would  be  a  case  of  the  blind  leading  the  blind." 

There  was  much  more  of  this — a  long  discussion.  We 
agreed  that  any  man  who  does  anything  must  have  so 

I  much  more  than  the  mere  idea — must  have  vision,  the 
ability  to  control  and  to  organize  men,  a  magnetism  for 
*•  those  who  are  successful — in  short,  that  mysterious  some 
thing  which  we  call  personality.  This  man  did  not  have 
it.  He  was  a  poor  scrub,  blown  hither  and  yon  by  all 
the  winds  of  circumstance,  dreaming  of  some  far-off  su 
premacy  which  he  never  could  enjoy  or  understand,  once 
he  had  it. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE     CITY  OF  SWAMP   ROOT 

BINGHAMTON — "Bimington,"  as  Franklin  confusedly 
called  it  in  trying  to  ask  the  way  of  someone — now 
dawned  swiftly  upon  us.  I  wouldn't  devote  a  line  to 
those  amazingly  commercial  towns  and  cities  of  America 
which  are  so  numerous  if  the  very  commercial  life  of 
the  average  American  weren't  so  interesting  to  me.  If 
anyone  should  ask  me  "What's  in  Binghamton?"  I 
should  confess  to  a  sense  of  confusion,  as  if  he  were 
expecting  me  to  refer  to  something  artistic  or  connected 
in  any  way  with  the  world  of  high  thought.  But  then, 
what's  in  Leeds  or  Sheffield  or  Nottingham,  or  in  Stettin 
or  Hamburg  or  Bremen?  Nothing  save  people,  and  peo 
ple  are  always  interesting,  when  you  get  enough  of  them. 

When  we  arrived  in  Binghamton  there  was  a  pa 
rade,  and  a  gala  holiday  atmosphere  seemed  everywhere 
prevailing.  Flags  were  out,  banners  were  strung  across 
the  roadway;  in  every  street  were  rumbling,  large  flag- 
bedecked  autotrucks  and  vehicles  of  various  descriptions 
loaded  with  girls  and  boys  in  white  (principally  girls) 
and  frequently  labeled  "Boost  Johnson  City." 

"What  in  the  world  is  Johnson  City,  do  you  suppose  ?" 
I  asked  of  Franklin.  "Are  they  going  to  change  the 
name  of  Binghamton  to  Johnson  City?" 

Speed  was  interested  in  the  crowds.  "Gee,  this  is  a 
swell  town  for  girls,"  he  commented;  but  after  we  had 
alighted  and  walked  about  among  them  for  a  time,  they 
did  not  seem  so  attractive  to  me.  But  the  place  had  a 
real  if  somewhat  staccato  air  of  gayety. 

"Where  is  Johnson  City?"  I  asked  of  a  drug  clerk 
of  whom  we  were  buying  a  sundae. 

107 


io8  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

uOh,  it's  a  town  out  here — a  suburb  that  used  to  be 
called  Leicestershire.  They're  renaming  it  after  a  man 
out  there — R.  G.  Johnson." 

"Why?" 

"Oh,  well,  he's  made  a  big  success  of  a  shoe  business 
out  there  that  employs  two  thousand  people  and  he's 
given  money  for  different  things." 

"So  they're  naming  the  town  after  him?" 

"Yes.  He's  a  pretty  good  fellow,  I  guess.  They 
say  he  is." 

Not  knowing  anything  of  Mr.  Johnson,  good,  bad, 
or  indifferent,  I  agreed  with  myself  to  suspend  judgment. 
A  man  who  can  build  up  a  shoe  manufacturing  busi 
ness  that  will  employ  two  thousand  people  and  get  the 
residents  of  a  fair-sized  city  or  town  tc  rename  it  after 
him  is  doing  pretty  well,  I  think.  He  couldn't  be  a  Dick 
Turpin  or  a  Jesse  James;  not  openly,  at  least.  People 
don't  rename  towns  after  Dick  Turpins. 

But  Binghamton  soon  interested  me  from  another 
point  of  view,  for  stepping  out  of  this  store  I  saw  a  great 
red,  eight  or  nine  story  structure  labeled  the  Kilmer 
Building,  and  then  I  realized  I  was  looking  at  the  home 
of  "Swamp  Root,"  one  of  those  amazing  cure-all  reme 
dies  which  arise,  shine,  make  a  fortune  for  some  clever 
compounder  and  advertiser,  and  then  after  a  period  dis 
appear.  Think  of  Hood's  Sarsaparilla,  Ayer's  Sarsa- 
parilla,  Peruna,  Omega  Oil,  Lydia  E.  Pinkham's 
Vegetable  Compound!  American  inventions,  each  and 
all,  purchased  by  millions.  Why  don't  the  historians  tell 
us  of  the  cure-alls  of  Greece  and  Rome  and  Egypt  and 
Babylon?  There  must  have  been  some. 

Looking  at  Dr.  Kilmer's  Swamp  Root  Building  re 
minded  me  of  a  winter  spent  in  a  mountain  town  in  West 
Virginia.  It  had  a  large  and  prosperous  drug  store, 
where  one  night  I  happened  to  be  loafing  for  a  little 
while,  to  take  shelter  from  the  snow  that  was  falling 
heavily.  Presently  there  entered  an  old,  decrepit  negro 
woman  who  hobbled  up  to  the  counter,  and  fumbling 


THE  CITY  OF  SWAMP  ROOT  109 

under  her  black  shawl,  produced  a  crumpled  dollar  bill. 

"I  want  a  bottle  of  Swamp  Root,"  she  said. 

"I'll  tell  you  how  it  is,  mammy,"  said  the  clerk,  a  dap 
per  country  beau,  with  a  most  oily  and  ingratiating  man 
ner.  "If  you  want  to  take  six  bottles  it's  only  five  dol 
lars.  Six  bottles  make  a  complete  cure.  If  you  take  the 
whole  six  now,  you've  got  'em.  Then  you've  got  the 
complete  cure." 

The  old  woman  hesitated.  She  was  evidently  as  near 
the  grave  with  any  remedy  as  without  one. 

"All  right,"  she  said,  after  a  moment's  pause. 

So  the  clerk  wrapped  six  bottles  into  a  large,  heavy 
parcel,  took  the  extra  bills  which  she  produced  and  rang 
them  up  in  his  cash  register.  And  meanwhile  she  gath 
ered  her  cure  under  her  shawl,  and  hobbled  forth,  smil 
ing  serenely.  It  depressed  me  at  the  time,  but  it  was  none 
of  my  business. 

Now  as  I  looked  at  this  large  building,  I  wondered 
how  many  other  hobbling  mammies  had  contributed  to 
its  bricks  and  plate  glass — and  why. 

There  was  another  large  building,  occupied  by  a  con 
cern  called  the  Ansco  Company,  which  seemed  to  arouse 
the  liveliest  interest  in  Franklin.  He  had  at  some  pre 
vious  time  been  greatly  interested  in  cameras  and  hap 
pened  to  know  that  a  very  large  camera  company, 
situated  somewhere  in  America,  had  once  stolen  from  this 
selfsame  Ansco  Company  some  secret  process  relating 
to  the  manufacture  of  a  flexible  film  and  had  proceeded 
therewith  to  make  so  many  millions  that  the  user  of  the 
stolen  process  eventually  became  one  of  the  richest  men 
in  America,  one  of  our  captains  of  great  industries. 

But  the  owners  of  the  Ansco  Company  were  dissatis 
fied.  Like  the  citizens  in  the  ancient  tale  who  are  robbed 
and  cry  "Stop  thief!"  they  sued  and  sued  and  sued  in  the 
courts.  First  they  sued  in  a  circuit  court,  then  in  a  state 
court  of  appeals,  then  in  a  federal  court  and  then  before 
the  United  States  Supreme  Court.  There  were  count 
less  lawyers  and  bags  and  bags  of  evidence;  reversals, 
new  trials,  stays,  and  errors  in  judgment,  until  finally,  by 


no  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

some  curious  turn  of  events,  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court  decided  that  the  process  invented  by  the  Ansco 
Company  really  did  belong  to  said  Ansco  Company  and 
that  all  other  users  of  the  process  were  interlopers  and 
would  have  to  repay  to  said  Ansco  Company  all  they 
had  ever  stolen  and  more — a  royalty  on  every  single 
camera  they  had  ever  sold.  So  the  Ansco  Company, 
like  the  virtuous  but  persecuted  youth  or  girl  in  the  fairy 
tale,  was  able  to  collect  the  millions  of  which  it  had  been 
defrauded  and  live  happily  ever  afterwards. 

Leaving  Binghamton,  we  went  out  along  the  beauti 
ful  Susquehanna,  which  here  in  the  heart  of  the  city  had 
been  parked  for  a  little  way,  and  saw  all  the  fine  houses 
of  all  the  very  wealthy  people  of  Binghamton.  Then 
we  drove  along  a  street  crowded  with  more  and  more 
beautiful  homes,  all  fresh  and  airy  with  flowers  and 
lawns  and  awnings,  and  at  last  we  came  to  Johnson  City, 
or  Leicestershire  as  it  once  was.  Here  were  the  remains 
of  a  most  tremendous  American  celebration — flags  and 
buntings  and  signs  and  a  merry-go-round.  In  front  of  a 
new  and  very  handsome  Catholic  Church  which  was  just 
building  hung  a  large  banner  reading  "The  noblest  Ro 
man  of  them  all — R.  G.  Johnson" — a  flare  of  enthusi 
asm  which  I  take  it  must  have  had  some  very  solid  sub 
stance  behind  it.  Down  in  a  hollow,  was  a  very,  very, 
very  large  red  factory  with  its  countless  windows  and 
great  towering  stacks  and  a  holiday  atmosphere  about 
it,  and  all  around  it  were  houses  and  houses  and  houses, 
all  new  and  all  very  much  alike.  You  could  see  that 
Mr.  Johnson  and  his  factory  and  his  proteges  had  grown 
exceedingly  fast.  And  in  the  streets  still  were  wagons 
with  bunting  on  them  and  people  in  them,  and  we  could 
see  that  there  had  just  been  a  procession,  with  soldiers 
and  boy  scouts  and  girls — but  alas,  we  had  missed  it. 

"Well,"  I  said  to  Franklin,  "now  you  see  how  it  is. 
Here  is  the  reward  of  virtue.  A  man  builds  a  great 
business  and  treats  his  employes  fairly  and  everybody 
loves  him.  Isn't  that  so?" 


FLORENCE    AND    THE   ARNO,    AT    OWEGO 


THE  CITY  OF  SWAMP  ROOT  in 

Franklin  merely  looked  at  me.     He  has  a  way  of  just 
contemplating  you,  at  times — noncommittally. 

It  was  soon  after  leaving  Binghamton  that  we  en 
countered  the  first  of  a  series  of  socalled  "detours,"  oc 
curring  at  intervals  all  through  the  states  of  New  York, 
Ohio  and  Indiana,  and  which  we  later  came  to  conclude 
were  the  invention  of  the  devil  himself.  Apparently 
traffic  on  the  roads  of  the  states  has  increased  so  much 
of  late  that  it  has  necessitated  the  repairing  of  former 
"made"  roads  alfc  the  conversion  of  old  routes  of  clay 
into  macadam  or  vitrified  brick.  Here  in  western  New 
York  (for  we  left  Pennsylvania  at  Halstead  for  awhile) 
they  were  all  macadam,  and  in  many  places  the  state 
roads  socalled  (roads  paid  for  by  the  money  of  the 
state  and  not  of  the  county)  were  invariably  supposed  to 
be  the  best.  All  strolling  villagers  and  rurals  would  tell 
you  so.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  as  we  soon  found  for  our 
selves,  they  were  nearly  always  the  worst,  for  they 
hummed  with  a  dusty,  whitey  traffic,  which  soon  suc 
ceeded  in  wearing  holes  in  them  of  a  size  anywhere  from 
that  of  a  dollar  to  that  of  a  washtub  or  vat.  Traveling 
at  a  rate  of  much  more  than  ten  miles  an  hour  over  these 
hollows  and  depressions  was  almost  unendurable.  Some 
times  local  motorists  and  farmers  in  a  spirit  of  despair 
had  cut  out  a  new  road  in  the  common  clay,  while  a  few 
feet  higher  up  lay  the  supposedly  model  "state  road," 
entirely  unused.  At  any  rate,  wherever  was  the  best  and 
shortest  road,  there  were  repairs  most  likely  to  be  taking 
place,  and  this  meant  a  wide  circle  of  anywhere  from 
two  or  three  to  nine  miles.  A  wretched  series  of  turns 
and  twists  calculated  to  try  your  spirit  and  temper  to 
the  breaking  point. 

"Detours  1  Detours!  Detours!"  I  suddenly  exclaimed 
at  one  place  in  western  Ohio.  "I  wish  to  heaven  we 
could  find  some  part  of  this  state  which  wasn't  full  of 
detours."  And  Speed  would  remark:  "Another  damn 
detour!  Well,  what  do  you  think  of  that?  I'd  like  to 
have  a  picture  of  this  one — I  would!" 
This,  however,  being  the  first  we  encountered,  did  not 


ii2  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

seem  so  bad.  We  jounced  and  bounced  around  it  and 
eventually  regained  the  main  road,  spinning  on  to  Owego, 
some  fifteen  or  twenty  miles  away. 

Day  was  beginning  to  draw  to  a  close.  The  wane  of 
our  afternoons  was  invariably  indicated  these  August 
days  by  a  little  stir  of  cool  air  coming  from  somewhere 
— perhaps  hollows  and  groves — and  seeming  to  have 
a  touch  of  dew  and  damp  in  it.  Spirals  of  gnats  ap 
peared  spinning  in  the  air,  following  us  a  little  way  and 
then  being  left  behind  or  overtaken  and  held  flat  against 
our  coats  and  caps.  I  was  always  brushing  off  gnats  at 
this  hour.  We  were  still  in  that  same  Susquehanna  Val 
ley  I  have  been  describing,  rolling  on  between  hills  any 
where  from  eight  hundred  to  a  thousand  feet  high  and 
seeing  the  long  shadows  of  them  stretch  out  and  cover 
the  valley.  Wherever  the  sun  struck  the  river  it  was 
now  golden — a  bright,  lustreful  gold — and  the  hills 
seemed  dotted  with  cattle,  some  with  bells  that  tinkled. 
Always  at  this  time  evening  smokes  began  to  curl  up 
from  chimneys  and  the  labor  of  the  day  seemed  to  be 
ending  in  a  pastoral  of  delight. 

"Oh,  Franklin,"  I  once  exclaimed,  "this  is  the  ideal 
hour.  Can  you  draw  me  this?" 

At  one  point  he  was  prompted  to  make  a  sketch.  At 
another  I  wanted  to  stop  and  contemplate  a  beautiful 
bend  in  the  river.  Soon  Owego  appeared,  a  town  say 
of  about  five  thousand,  nestling  down  by  the  waterside 
amid  a  great  growth  of  elms,  and  showing  every  ele 
ment  of  wealth  and  placid  comfort.  A  group  of  homes 
along  the  Susquehanna,  their  backs  perched  out  over 
it,  reminded  us  of  the  houses  at  Florence  on  the  Arno 
and  Franklin  had  to  make  a  sketch  of  these.  Then  we 
entered  the  town  over  a  long,  shaky  iron  bridge  and  re 
joiced  to  see  one  of  the  prettiest  cities  we  had  yet  found. 

Curiously,  I  was  most  definitely  moved  by  Owego. 
There  is  something  about  the  old  fashioned,  comfortable 
American  town  at  its  best — the  town  where  moderate 
wealth  and  religion  and  a  certain  social  tradition  hold — 
which  is  at  once  pleasing  and  yet  comfortable — a  grati- 


THE  CITY  OF  SWAMP  ROOT  113 

fying  and  yet  almost  disturbingly  exclusive  state  of  af 
fairs.  At  least  as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  such  places  and 
people  are  antipodal  to  anything  that  I  could  ever  again 
think,  believe  or  feel.  From  contemplating  most  of  the 
small  towns  with  which  I  have  come  in  contact  and  the 
little  streets  of  the  cities  as  contrasted  with  the  great,  I 
have  come  to  dread  the  conventional  point  of  view.  The 
small  mind  of  the  townsmen  is  antipolar  to  that  of  the 
larger,  more  sophisticated  wisdom  of  the  city.  It  may 
be  that  the  still  pools  and  backwaters  of  communal  life 
as  represented  by  these  places  is  necessary  to  the  preser 
vation  of  the  state  and  society.  I  do  not  know.  Cer 
tainly  the  larger  visioned  must  have  something  to  direct 
and  the  small  towns  and  little  cities  seem  to  provide 
them.  They  are  in  the  main  fecundating  centres — regions 
where  men  and  women  are  grown  for  more  labor  of  the 
same  kind.  The  churches  and  moral  theorists  and  the 
principle  of  self  preservation,  which  in  the  lowly  and  dull 
works  out  into  the  rule  of  ulive  and  let  live,"  provide 
the  rules  of  their  existence.  They  do  not  gain  a  real 
insight  into  the  fact  that  they  never  practise  what  they 
believe  or  that  merely  living,  as  man  is  compelled  to 
live,  he  cannot  interpret  his  life  in  the  terms  of  the  reli 
gionist  or  the  moral  enthusiast.  Men  are  animals  with 
dreams  of  something  superior  to  animality,  but  the  small 
town  soul — or  the  little  soul  anywhere — never  gets  this 
straight.  These  are  the  places  in  which  the  churches 
flourish.  Here  is  where  your  theologically  schooled 
numskull  thrives,  like  the  weed  that  he  is.  Here  is 
where  the  ordinary  family  with  a  little  tradition  puts  an 
inordinate  value  on  that  tradition.  All  the  million  and 
one  notions  that  have  been  generated  to  explain  the  uni 
verse  here  float  about  in  a  nebulous  mist  and  create  a 
dream  world  of  error,  a  miasmatic  swamp  mist  above 
which  these  people  never  rise.  I  never  was  in  such  a 
place  for  any  period  of  time  without  feeling  cabined, 
cribbed,  confined,  intellectually  if  not  emotionally. 

Speed  went  around  the  corner  to  look  for  a  garage  and 
Franklin   departed  in   another   direction   for   a   bag  of 


ii4  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

popcorn.  Left  alone,  I  contemplated  a  saloon  which 
stood  next  door  and  on  the  window  of  which  was  pasted 
in  gold  glass  letters  "B.  B.  Delano. "  Thirsting  for  a 
glass  of  beer,  I  entered,  and  inside  I  found  the  customary 
small  town  saloon  atmosphere,  only  this  room  was  very 
large  and  clean  and  rather  vacant.  There  was  a  smell 
of  whiskey  in  the  cask,  a  good  smell,  and  a  number  of 
citizens  drinking  beer.  A  solemn  looking  bartender, 
who  was  exceptionally  bald,  was  waiting  on  them.  Some 
bits  of  cheese  showed  dolefully  under  a  screen.  I 
ordered  a  beer  and  gazed  ruefully  about.  I  was  really 
not  here,  but  back  in  Warsaw,  Indiana,  in  1886. 

And  in  here  was  Mr.  B.  B.  Delano  himself,  a  small, 
dapper,  rusty,  red  faced  man,  who,  though  only  mod 
erately  intelligent,  was  pompous  to  the  verge  of  bursting, 
as  befits  a  small  man  who  has  made  a  moderate  suc 
cess  in  life.  Yet  Mr.  B.  B.  Delano,  as  I  was  soon  to 
discover,  had  his  private  fox  gnawing  at  his  vitals.  There 
was  a  worm  in  the  bud.  Only  recently  there  had  been 
a  great  anti-liquor  agitation  and  a  fair  proportion  of 
the  saloons  all  over  the  state  had  been  closed.  Three 
months  before  in  this  very  town,  at  the  spring  election, 
"no  license"  had  been  voted.  All  the  saloons  here,  to  the 
number  of  four,  would  have  to  be  closed,  including  Mr. 
Delano's,  in  the  heart  of  the  town.  That  meant  that  Mr. 
Delano  would  have  to  get  another  business  of  some  kind 
or  quit.  I  saw  him  looking  at  me  curiously,  almost 
mournfully. 

"Touring  the  state  ?"  he  asked. 

"We're  riding  out  to  Indiana,"  I  explained.  "I  come 
from  there." 

"Oh,  I  see.  Indiana  1  That's  a  nice  little  trip,  isn't 
it?  Well,  I  see  lots  of  machines  going  through  here 
these  days,  many  more  than  I  ever  expected  to  see.  It's 
made  a  difference  in  my  business.  Only" — and  here 
followed  a  long  account  of  his  troubles.  He  owned 
houses  and  lands,  a  farm  of  three  hundred  acres  not  far 
out,  on  which  he  lived,  and  other  properties,  but  this 
saloon  obviously  was  his  pet.  "I'm  thinking  of  making 


THE  CITY  OF  SWAMP  ROOT  115 

an  eating  place  of  it  next  fall,"  he  added.  "  'No 
license'  may  not  last  — forever."  His  eye  had  a  shrewd, 
calculating  expression. 

"That's  true,"  I  said. 

"It  keeps  me  worried,  though,"  he  added  doubtfully. 
"I  don't  like  to  leave  now.  Besides,  I'm  getting  along. 
I'm  nearly  sixty,"  he  straightened  himself  up  as  though 
he  meant  to  prove  that  he  was  only  forty,  "and  I  like 
my  farm.  It  really  wouldn't  kill  me  if  I  never  could 
open  this  place  any  more."  But  I  could  see  that  he  was 
talking  just  to  hear  himself  talk,  boasting.  He  was  des 
perately  fond  of  his  saloon  and  all  that  it  represented; 
not  ashamed,  by  any  means. 

"But  there's  Newark  and  New  York,"  I  said.  "I 
should  think  you'd  like  to  go  down  there." 

"I  might,"  he  agreed;  "perhaps  I  will.  It's  a  long 
way  for  me,  though.  Won't  you  have  another  drink — 
you  and  your  friends?"  By  now  Franklin  and  Speed 
were  returning  and  Mr.  Delano  waved  a  ceremonious, 
inclusive  hand,  as  if  to  extend  all  the  courtesies  of  the 
establishment. 

The  bartender  was  most  alert — a  cautious,  appre 
hensive  person.  I  could  see  that  Mr.  Delano  was  in 
clined  to  be  something  of  a  martinet.  For  some  reason 
he  had  conceived  of  us  as  personages — richer  than  him 
self,  no  doubt — and  was  anxious  to  live  up  to  our  ideas 
of  things  and  what  he  thought  we  might  expect. 

"Well,  now,"  he  said,  as  we  were  leaving,  "if  you  ever 
come  through  here  again  you  might  stop  and  see  if  I'm 
still  here." 

As  Speed  threw  on  the  ignition  spark  and  the  machine 
began  to  rumble  and  shake,  Mr.  Delano  proceeded  up 
the  handsome  small  town  street  with  quite  a  stride.  I 
could  see  that  he  felt  himself  very  much  of  a  personage — 
one  of  the  leading  figures  of  Owego. 


CHAPTER  XV 

A  RIDE  BY  NIGHT 

IT  was  a  glorious  night — quite  wonderful.  There  are 
certain  summer  evenings  when  nature  produces  a  poetic, 
emotionalizing  mood.  Life  seems  to  talk  to  you  in 
soft  whispers  of  wonderful  things  it  is  doing.  Marshes 
and  pools,  if  you  encounter  any,  exhale  a  mystic  breath. 
You  can  look  into  the  profiles  of  trees  and  define 
strange  gorgon-like  countenances — all  the  crones  and 
spectres  of  a  thousand  years.  (What  images  of  horror 
have  I  not  seen  in  the  profiles  of  trees!)  Every  cottage 
seems  to  contain  a  lamp  of  wonder  and  to  sing.  Every 
garden  suggests  a  tryst  of  lovers.  A  river,  if  you  fol 
low  one,  glimmers  and  whimpers.  The  stars  glow  and 
sing.  They  bend  down  like  lambent  eyes.  All  nature 
improvises  a  harmony — a  splendid  harmony — one  of  her 
rarest  symphonies  indeed. 

And  tonight  as  we  sped  out  of  Owego  and  I  rested 
in  the  deep  cushions  of  the  car  it  seemed  as  if  some  such 
perfect  symphony  was  being  interpreted.  Somewhere 
out  of  the  great  mystery  of  the  unknowable  was  coming 
this  rare  and  lovely  something.  What  is  God,  I  asked, 
that  he  should  build  such  scenes  as  this?  His  forces  of 
chemistry!  His  powers  of  physics!  We  complain  and 
complain,  but  scenes  like  these  compensate  for  many 
things.  They  weave  and  sing.  But  what  are  they? 
Here  now  are  treetoads  cheep-cheeping.  What  do  they 
know  of  life — or  do  their  small  bodies  contain  a  world 
of  wonder,  all  dark  to  my  five  dull  senses?  And  these 
sweet  shadows — rich  and  fragrant — now  mellowing, 
now  poignant!  I  looked  over  my  right  shoulder  quite 
by  accident  and  there  was  a  new  moon  hanging  low  in 
the  west,  a  mere  feather,  its  faintness  reflected  in  the 

116 


A  RIDE  BY  NIGHT  117 

bosom  of  a  still  stream.  We  were  careening  along  a 
cliff  overhanging  this  river  and  as  we  did  so  along  came 
a  brightly  lighted  train  following  the  stream  bed  and 
rushing  somewhere,  probably  to  New  York.  I  thought 
of  all  the  people  on  it  and  what  they  were  doing,  what 
dreaming,  where  going;  what  trysts,  what  plots,  what 
hopes  nurturing.  I  looked  into  a  cottage  door  and  there 
a  group  of  people  were  singing  and  strumming — their 
voices  followed  us  down  the  wind  in  music  and  laughter. 

Somewhere  along  this  road  at  some  wayside  garage 
we  had  to  stop  for  oil  and  gas,  as  Speed  referred  to 
gasoline — always  one  quart  of  oil,  I  noticed,  and  about 
seven  gallons  of  gasoline,  the  price  being  anywhere  from 
$1.25  to  $1.75,  according  to  where  we  chanced  to  be. 
I  was  drowsing  and  dreaming,  thinking  how  wonderful  it 
all  was  and  how  pleasant  our  route  would  surely  be, 
when  a  man  came  up  on  a  motorcycle,  a  strained  and 
wiry  looking  individual,  who  said  he  had  just  come 
through  western  New  York  and  northern  Ohio — one  of 
those  fierce  souls  who  cover  a  thousand  miles  a  day  on  a 
motorcycle.  They  terrify  me. 

Franklin,  with  an  honest  interest  in  the  wellbeing  of 
his  car,  was  for  gathering  information  as  to  roads. 
There  was  no  mystery  about  our  immediate  course, 
for  we  were  in  a  region  of  populous  towns — Waverley, 
Elmira,  Corning,  Hornell — which  on  our  map  were 
marked  as  easy  of  access.  The  roads  were  supposed  to 
be  ideal.  The  great  proposition  before  us,  however,  was 
whether  once  having  reached  Elmira  we  would  go  due 
north  to  Canandaigua  and  Rochester,  thereby  striking, 
as  someone  told  us,  a  wonderful  state  road  to  Buffalo — 
the  road — or  whether  we  would  do  as  I  had  been  wishing 
and  suggesting,  cut  due  west,  following  the  northern 
Pennsylvania  border,  and  thereby  save  perhaps  as  much 
as  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  in  useless  riding  north  and 
south. 

Franklin  was  for  the  region  that  offered  the  best  roads. 
I  was  for  adventure,  regardless  of  machines  or  roads. 
We  had  half  compromised  on  the  thought  that  it  might 


n8  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

be  well  to  visit  Warsaw,  New  York,  which  lay  about  half 
way  between  the  two  opposing  routes  with  which  we 
were  opposing  each  other,  and  this  solely  because  the 
name  of  one  of  my  home  towns  in  Indiana  was  Warsaw 
and  this  Warsaw,  as  my  pamphlet  showed,  was  about 
the  same  size.  It  was  a  sort  of  moonshiny,  nonsensical 
argument  all  around;  and  this  man  who  had  just  come 
through  Warsaw  from  Buffalo  had  no  particular  good 
word  to  say  for  the  roads.  It  was  a  hilly  country,  he 
said.  "You  climb  one  hill  to  get  into  Warsaw  and  five 
others  to  get  out,  and  they're  terrors.''  I  could  see  a 
look  of  uncertainty  pass  over  Franklin's  face.  Farewell 
to  Warsaw,  I  thought. 

But  another  bystander  was  not  so  sure.  All  the  roads 
from  here  on  leading  toward  Buffalo  were  very  good. 
Many  machines  came  through  Warsaw.  My  spirits 
rose.  We  decided  to  postpone  further  discussion  until 
we  reached  Elmira  and  could  consult  with  an  automobile 
club,  perhaps.  We  knew  we  would  not  get  farther  than 
Elmira  tonight;  for  we  had  chaffered  away  another  hour, 
and  it  was  already  dusk. 

We  never  experienced  a  more  delightful  evening  on 
the  whole  trip.  It  was  all  so  moving — the  warm  air,  the 
new  silvery  moon,  the  trees  on  the  hills  forming  dark 
shadows,  the  hills  themselves  gradually  growing  dim  and 
fading  into  black,  the  twinkling  lights  here  and  there,  fire 
flies,  the  river,  this  highroad  always  high,  high  above 
the  stream.  There  were  gnats  but  no  mosquitoes — at 
least  none  when  we  were  in  motion — and  our  friend 
Speed,  guiding  the  car  with  a  splendid  technique,  was  still 
able  between  twists  and  turns  and  high  speeds  and  low 
speeds  to  toss  back  tale  after  tale  of  a  daring  and  yet 
childlike  character,  which  kept  me  laughing  all  the  while. 
Speed  was  so  naive.  He  had  such  innocently  gross  and 
yet  comfortable  human  things  to  relate  of  horses,  cows, 
dogs,  farm  girls,  farm  boys,  the  studfarm  business,  with 
which  he  was  once  connected,  and  so  on. 

"Put  on  a  slip  and  come  down,"  he  called  to  her. 

"So  she  slipped  on  the  stairs  and  came  down.1' 


A  RIDE  BY  NIGHT  119 

(Do  you  remember  that  one?  They  were  all  like 
that.) 

Once  out  of  Owego,  we  were  soon  in  Waverley,  a  town 
say  of  ten  or  fifteen  thousand  population,  which  we  mis 
took  at  first  for  Elmira.  Its  streets  were  so  wide  and 
clean,  its  houses  so  large  and  comfortable,  we  saw  on 
entering.  I  called  Franklin's  attention  to  the  typical 
American  atmosphere  of  this  town  too — the  America  of 
a  slightly  older  day.  There  was  a  time  not  long  ago 
when  Americans  felt  that  the  beginning  and  end  of  all 
things  was  the  home.  Not  anything  great  in  construction 
or  tragically  magnificent,  but  just  a  comfortable  home  in 
which  to  grow  and  vegetate.  Everything  had  to  be  sacri 
ficed  to  it.  It  came  to  have  a  sacrosanct  character:  all  the 
art,  the  joy,  the  hope  which  a  youthful  and  ingenuous 
people  were  feeling  and  believing,  expressed,  or  attempted 
to  express  themselves,  in  the  home.  It  was  a  place  of 
great  trees,  numerous  flowerbeds,  a  spacious  lawn, 
French  windows,  a  square  cupola,  verandas,  birdhouses. 
All  the  romance  of  a  youthful  spirit  crept  into  these  things 
and  still  lingers.  You  can  feel  as  you  look  at  them  how 
virtuous  the  owners  felt  themselves  to  be,  and  how  per 
fect  their  children,  what  marvels  of  men  and  women  these 
latter  were  to  become — pure  and  above  reproach. 

Alas  for  a  dusty  world  that  would  not  permit  it — that 
will  never  permit  any  perfect  thing  to  be.  These  houses, 
a  little  faded  now,  a  little  puffy  with  damp,  a  little  heavier 
for  paint,  a  little  grey  or  brown  or  greenish  black,  sug 
gest  by  their  atmosphere  that  they  have  yielded  up  crops 
of  children.  We  have  seen  several  generations  go  by 
since  they  were  built.  Have  they  been  any  better  than 
their  sires,  if  as  good?  It  seems  to  me  as  if  I  myself 
have  witnessed  a  great  revolt  against  all  the  binding  per 
fection  which  these  lovely  homes  represented.  In  my 
youthful  day  it  was  taken  for  granted  that  we  were  to 
be  good  and  beautiful  and  true,  and  God  was  to  reward 
us  in  heaven.  We  were  to  die  and  go  straight  before 
the  throne  of  grace.  Each  of  us  was  to  take  one  wife  or 
one  husband  to  our  heart  and  hearth.  We  were  never 


120  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

to  swindle  or  steal  or  lie  or  do  anything  wrong  whatso 
ever.  America  was  to  make  the  sermon  on  the  mount 
come  true — and  look  at  us.  Have  we  done  it? 

I  call  attention  to  Pittsburg,  Chicago,  and  New  York, 
to  go  no  further:  to  the  orgies  of  trust  building,  stock 
gambling,  stock  watering,  get  rich  quick-ing;  to  the  scan 
dals  of  politics  and  finance;  to  the  endless  divorces  and 
remarriages  and  all  the  license  of  the  stage  and  the 
hungry  streets  of  harlots  and  kept  women.  Have  we 
made  the  ten  commandments  work?  Do  not  these  small 
towns  with  their  faded  ideal  homes  stand  almost  as 
Karnak  and  Memphis — in  their  frail  way  pointing  the 
vanity  of  religious  and  moral  ideals  in  this  world?  We 
have  striven  for  some  things  but  not  the  ideals  of  the 
sermon  on  the  mount.  Our  girls  have  not  been  virtuous 
beyond  those  of  any  other  nation — our  boys  more  honest 
than  those  of  any  other  land.  We  have  simply  been 
human,  and  a  little  more  human  for  being  told  that  we 
were  not  or  ought  not  to  be  so. 

In  Waverley,  despite  the  fact  that  we  had  determined 
to  reach  Elmira  before  stopping  for  dinner,  we  became 
suddenly  hungry  and  while  "cruising,"  as  Speed  put  it, 
down  the  principal  street,  about  three  quarters  of  a  mile 
long,  with  various  stores  and  movies  in  full  swing,  we 
discovered  an  irresistible  "lunch  car"  crowded  in  between 
two  buildings.     Inside  was  the  usual  "hash  slinger,"  at 
his  pots  and  pans.     He  was  a  swarthy  skinned  black- 
haired  youth,  this  impresario  with  a  penchant  for  doing 
his  work  gallantly,  like  an  acrobat.     He  had  nothing  to 
offer  save  pork  and  beans,  ham  and  eggs,  various  sand 
wiches,  and  one  kind  of  pie.     All  the  remainder  of  his 
stock  had  been  disposed  of.     I  ordered  ham  and  eggs — 
somehow  in  small  towns  I  always  feel  safest  in  so  doing. 
It  was  amusing  to  watch  him  "flip"  an  egg  with  a  turn 
of  the  wrist  and  at  the  same  time  hold  bantering  converse 
with  a  frowsy  headed  youth  whose  face  was  pressed  to 
a  small  porthole  giving  out  onto  the  sidewalk.     Every 
now  and  then,  as  we  were  eating,  some  familiar  of  the 
town  would  tap  on  the  window  to  give  evidence  of  his 


A  RIDE  BY  NIGHT  121 

passing,  and  soon  the  place  was  invaded  by  five  evening 
roysterers,  smart  boys  of  the  town,  who  made  all  sorts 
of  quips  and  jests  as  to  the  limited  bill  of  fare. 

"How  about  a  whole  egg?     Have  you  got  one?" 

"Do  you  ever  keep  any  salt  and  pepper  here,  Jake?" 

"Somebody  said  you'd  have  a  new  pie,  tomorrow.  Is 
that  right?" 

"What's  the  matter  with  the  old  one?"  inquired  some 
one. 

"Why,  a  feller  bit  into  it  by  mistake.  They're  goin' 
to  sell  it  to  the  shootin'  gallery  for  a  target." 

"Why  don't  you  fellers  get  up  a  new  line  o'  dope?" 
interjected  the  host  at  one  place.  "My  pies  ain't  in  it 
with  what  you're  springin'." 

This  drew  a  laugh  and  more  chatter. 

As  I  sat  on  a  stool  looking  out  and  munching  my 
"ham-and"  I  could  not  help  thinking  of  the  high  spirits 
of  all  these  towns  we  were  passing.  In  Europe,  in  places 
of  four  or  five  times  the  size  of  this — Rotterdam,  Am 
sterdam,  The  Hague,  Dover,  Amiens,  Florence,  Perugia, 
even  Venice,  I  might  say,  I  found  no  such  flare  nor  any 
such  zest  for  just  living.  What  is  it  about  Americans 
that  gives  all  their  small  towns  such  an  air?  Somebody 
had  already  introduced  the  five-light  lamp  standard  here, 
in  one  or  two  places.  The  stores  were  all  brightly 
lighted  and  you  could  see  boys  and  girls  going  up  and 
down  in  the  hope  of  those  chance  encounters  with  ad 
venture  which  youths  and  maidens  of  all  strata  so  crave. 
Noting  all  this,  I  said  to  myself  that  in  Europe  somehow, 
in  towns  of  this  size  and  much  larger,  things  always 
seemed  duller.  Here  in  America  there  are  always  these 
boys  and  girls  of  no  particular  social  caste,  I  take  it, 
whose  homes  are  not  very  attractive,  whose  minds  and 
bodies  are  craving  a  touch  of  vitality — gay  contact  with 
someone  of  the  other  sex — and  who  find  their  social  life 
in  this  way,  on  the  streets.  No  doubt  at  this  point  some 
one  will  rise  to  say  that  they  need  more  supervision.  I 
am  not  so  sure.  As  life  expresses  itself,  so  it  should  be, 
I  fancy.  All  my  sympathies  go  out  to  such  young  peo- 


122  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

pie,  for  I  recall  with  what  earnestness  as  a  boy  I  used  to 
do  this  same  thing — how  I  wished  and  longed  and  how 
my  body  tingled  at  the  thoughts  of  love  and  the  promise 
of  life  to  come. 

Once  on  the  road  again,  I  hummed  and  meditated  until 
suddenly  I  found  myself  dreaming.  I  wasn't  on  the  high 
road  between  Binghamton  and  Elmira  at  all  but  in  some 
happy  land  that  hadn't  anything  to  do  with  motoring — 
a  land  of  youth  and  affection.  Suddenly  I  sat  up,  won 
dering  whether  I  had  keeled  over  toward  Franklin,  and 
he  had  discovered  that  I  had  been  asleep. 

"We  don't  have  to  spend  the  night  in  Elmira,  do  we?" 
I  ventured  cautiously. 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Franklin,  amiably. 

"Since  it's  so  late,  the  next  hotel  we  come  to,  we'd 
better  tie  up,  don't  you  think, — I'm  getting  sleepy." 

"All  right  for  me,"  agreed  Franklin.  I  couldn't  tell 
whether  he  was  sleepy  or  not. 

Presently  a  great  square  old  house  came  into  view  with 
trees  and  flowers  and  a  light  burning  before  it.  It  was 
so  still  now  we  seemed  to  have  the  night  all  to  ourselves. 
No  automobiles  were  in  sight.  We  debated  whether  we 
would  stay  here. 

"Oh,  let's  risk  it,"  said  Franklin.  "It's  only  for  one 
night,  anyhow." 

We  were  greeted  by  a  tall,  angular  country  boy  with 
the  air  of  one  who  is  half  asleep  and  a  habit  of  running 
his  hand  through  his  hair.  He  had  been  serving  three 
men  in  the  rear  with  drinks.  He  led  us  up  warm,  stuffy, 
carpeted  halls,  lighted  by  oil  lamps,  into  a  small,  musty 
chamber  with  a  large,  yellow,  creaky  bed.  This  and 
another  similar  apartment  for  Speed  were  all  he  could 
offer  us. 

It  was  hot.  A  few  mosquitoes  were  buzzing.  Still 
the  prospect  of  a  deep  black  sky  and  stars  through  the 
open  window  was  soothing.  I  made  a  few  joyless  com 
ments,  which  Franklin  received  in  silence;  and  then  we 
slept. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

CHEMUNG 

NEXT  morning  I  was  aroused  at  dawn,  it  seemed  to 
me,  by  a  pounding  on  a  nearby  door. 

"Get  up,  you  drunken  hound!"  called  a  voice  which 
was  unmistakably  that  of  the  young  man  who  had  rented 
us  the  room.  "That's  right,  snore,  after  you  stay  up  all 
night,"  he  added;  and  he  beat  the  door  vehemently  again. 

I  wanted  to  get  up  and  protest  against  his  inconsid- 
erateness  of  the  slumber  of  others  and  would  have,  I 
think,  only  I  was  interested  to  discover  who  the  "drunken 
hound"  might  be  and  why  this  youth  should  be  so  abrupt 
with  him.  After  all,  I  reflected,  we  were  in  a  very  poor 
hotel,  the  boy  doing  the  knocking  was  a  mere  farm  hand 
translated  to  the  country  hotel  business,  and  anyhow  we 
should  soon  be  out  of  here.  It  was  all  life  and  color 
and  if  I  didn't  like  it  I  needn't  have  stayed  here  the 
night  before.  Franklin  would  have  gone  on.  But  who 
was  the  "drunken  hound"  ?  The  sound  had  ceased 
almost  as  abruptly  as  it  had  begun.  The  boy  had  gone 
downstairs.  After  awhile  the  light  grew  stronger  and 
Franklin  seemed  to  stir.  I  rose  and  pulled  the  shutters 
to,  but  could  not  sleep  any  more.  The  world  outside 
looked  so  inviting.  There  were  trees  and  great  fields 
of  grass  and  a  few  white  houses  scattered  here  and  there 
and  a  heavy  dew.  -I  at  once  thought  how  delightful  it 
would  be  to  get  up  and  ride  on  again. 

"This  is  a  typical  middle  west  country  hotel,  even 
if  it  is  in  New  York,"  said  Franklin,  sitting  up  and  run 
ning  his  hand  through  his  tousled  hair.  "That  fellow 
he's  calling  a  'drunken  hound'  must  be  his  father.  I 
heard  him  tell  Speed  last  night  that  his  father  slept 
in  there." 

123 


124  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

Presently  we  threw  open  the  shutters  and  made  what 
use  we  could  of  the  bowl  and  pitcher  and  the  two  small 
towels  provided. 

"How  did  you  ever  come  to  be  an  artist,  Franklin?" 
I  inquired  idly,  as  I  watched  him  stare  out  at  the  sur 
rounding  fields,  while  he  sat  putting  on  his  shoes.  "You 
told  me  once  that  you  were  a  farm  hand  until  you  were 
nearly  twentyfive." 

"Nearly  twentysix,"  he  corrected.  "Oh,  I  always 
wanted  to  draw  and  did,  a  little,  only  I  didn't  know  any 
thing  about  it.  Finally  I  took  a  course  in  a  correspond 
ence  school." 

"Get  out,"  I  replied  incredulously. 

"Yes,  I  did,"  he  went  on.  "They  sent  me  instruc 
tions  how  to  lay  in  with  pen  and  ink  various  sorts  of  line 
technique  on  sheets  of  paper  that  were  ruled  off  in 
squares — long  lines,  short  lines,  stipple,  'crosspatch7 
and  that  sort  of  thing.  They  made  some  other  sugges 
tions  that  had  some  value :  what  kind  of  ink  and  pens  and 
paper  to  buy.  I  used  to  try  to  draw  with  ordinary  writing 
ink  and  pens." 

"But  a  correspondence  school "  I  protested. 

"I  know,"  he  said.  "It  seems  ridiculous.  It's  true, 
just  the  same.  I  didn't  know  where  else  to  go  and  be 
sides  I  didn't  have  the  money.  There  was  a  school  in 
Indianapolis  but  they  wanted  too  much — I  tried  it  awhile 
but  the  instructor  knew  very  little.  The  correspondence 
school  wanted  only  six  dollars  for  fifteen  lessons,  and 
they  took  it  in  part  payments." 

He  smiled  reminiscently. 

"Well,  how  did  you  come  to  get  started,  finally?" 

"Oh,  I  worked  most  of  my  method  out  for  myself. 
Art  is  a  matter  of  feeling,  anyhow.  The  drawing  in 
squares  gave  me  an  idea  which  made  me  abandon  the 
squares.  I  used  to  write  poetry  too,  of  sorts — or  tried 
to — and  one  day  I  wrote  a  poem  and  decided  to  illustrate 
it  and  take  it  down  to  one  of  the  Indianapolis  newspapers, 
because  I  had  seen  others  in  there  somewhat  like  it — I 
mean  illustrated  in  pen  and  ink.  It  was  a  poem  about 


CHEMUNG  125 

October,  or  something.  My  father  thought  I  was  wast 
ing  my  time.  He  wanted  me  to  tend  the  farm.  But  I 
took  the  poem  down  and  they  bought  it  right  away — 
gave  me  six  dollars  for  it." 

"And  then  what?"  I  asked,  deeply  interested. 

"Well,  that  rather  astonished  my  father — as  much, 
if  not  more,  than  it  did  me.  He  never  imagined  there 
was  any  money  in  that  sort  of  thing — and  unless  you 

were  going  to  make  money "  He  waved  his  hand 

deprecatively. 

"I  know,"  I  agreed.     "And  then  what?" 

"Well,  they  bought  another  and  my  father  began  to 
think  there  was  something  in  it — in  art,  you  know,  if  you 
want  to  call  it  that,  in  Indiana,  at  that  time !" — he  paused. 
"Still  I  can't  tell  you  how  much  feeling  I  put  in  those 
things,  either, — the  trees,  the  birds  flying,  the  shocked 
corn.  I  used  to  stop  when  I  was  plowing  or  reaping 
and  stand  and  look  at  the  sky  and  the  trees  and  the  clouds 
and  wish  I  could  paint  them  or  do  something.  The  big 
cities  seemed  so  far  off.  But  it's  Indiana  that  seems  won 
derful  to  me  now." 

"And  to  me,"  I  said.  "Like  a  mother.  Because  we 
were  brought  up  there,  I  suppose." 

Sitting  on  the  edge  of  this  wretched  hotel  bed,  Frank 
lin  smiled  vaguely,  his  fine  hand  moving  through  his  glis 
tening  white  hair. 

"And  then?" 

"Well,  one  day  the  editor  in  Indianapolis  said  I  ought 
to  send  some  of  my  drawing  down  to  New  York,  or  go 
down — that  I  would  get  along.  He  thought  I  ought  to 
study  art." 

"Yes?" 

"Well,  I  saved  enough  drawing  for  the  Indianapolis 
News  and  writing  poetry  and  pitching  hay  and  plowing 
wheat  to  go  that  autumn  to  Chicago;  I  spent  three 
months  in  the  Art  Institute.  Being  in  those  days  a  good 
Sunday  School  boy,  a  publisher  of  religious  literature, 
socalled,  bought  some  work  of  me  and  at  Christmas  time 
I  sold  a  half  page  to  the  old  Chicago  Record.  The  fol- 


126  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

lowing  fall  I  went  to  New  York.  I  found  a  little  room 
and  sold  sketches,  and  then  I  got  on  a  paper — the  News. 
You  remember." 

"Certainly.    Was  that  your  first  place?" 

"The  very  first." 

"And  I  thought  you  had  been  in  New  York  years  and 
years." 

I  can  see  Franklin  even  yet,  standing  before  his  draw- 
ingboard  in  the  newspaper  office,  making  horrible  Sun 
day  "layouts."  He  was  so  gentle,  good  looking  and  al 
together  attractive. 

"Yes,  and  then  what?" 

"Well,  after  my  year's  contract  which  started  with 
the  News  had  expired,  I  tried  freelancing.  This  didn't 
go  very  well;  so  I  determined  not  to  spend  all  my  sav 
ings  visiting  art  editors.  I  boarded  a  boat  one  day  and 
went  to  Europe.  Four  months  later,  I  returned  to  New 
York  and  rented  a  studio.  After  I  had  paid  my  first 
month's  rent  I  was  broke.  At  the  magazines  I  would 
say  that  I  had  just  returned  from  abroad,  so  that  I  got 
plenty  of  work,  but  I  owned  neither  easel  nor  chair. 
After  a  few  days  the  janitor,  if  you  please,  came  to  me 
and  said  that  he  and  his  wife  had  been  talking  about  me 
and  thought  perhaps  I  needed  some  money  and  that  they 
had  eighty  dollars  upstairs  which  I  could  have  right 
away  if  I  wanted  to  use  it.  It  sounds  wild,  but  it's  true. 
They  said  I  could  take  it  and  pay  it  back  whenever  I  got 
ready,  in  six  months  or  a  year  or  two  years." 

My  estimate  of  poor  old  human  nature  was  rapidly 
rising. 

"Did  you  take  it?" 

"Yes,  a  part  of  it.  I  had  to,  in  a  way;  but  I  paid  it 
back  in  a  little  while.  I  often  think  of  those  people." 

We  stopped  talking  about  his  career  then  and  went 
down  to  look  in  the  diningroom  and  after  our  car.  The 
place  was  so  unsatisfactory  and  it  was  still  so  early  we 
decided  not  to  remain  for  breakfast. 

As  I  was  sitting  on  the  porch,  Franklin  having  gone 
off  to  rout  out  Speed,  an  automobile  approached  contain- 


CHEMUNG  127 

ing  a  man  and  three  women  and  bearing  a  plumcolored 
pennant  labeled  "Lansing,  Michigan. "  Pennants  seem 
to  be  a  habit  with  cars  coming  from  the  west.  These 
tourists  halted,  and  I  was  morally  certain  that  they  did 
so  because  of  my  presence  here.  They  thought  others 
were  breakfasting.  With  much  fluttering  of  their  motor 
ing  regalia,  the  women  stepped  out  and  shook  themselves 
while  their  escort  departed  to  make  inquiries.  Presently 
he  returned  and  with  him  our  young  host,  who  in  the  clear 
morning  light  seemed  much  more  a  farmer  than  ever 
— a  plow  hand.  Something  about  his  crude,  untutored 
strength  and  energy  appealed  to  me.  I  thought  of  his 
drunken  father  and  how  he  might  be  trying  to  make  the 
best  of  this  place,  against  lack  of  experience  and  with  a 
ne'er  do  well  parent  on  his  hands.  Now  he  fixed  me 
with  a  steady  eye. 

uYou  people  goin'  to  have  breakfast?"  he  asked. 

"No,"   I  replied,  pleasantly. 

"You  ain't?" 

"No." 

"Well,"  he  went  on,  turning  to  the  newcomers,  "then 
you  people  can  have  breakfast." 

So,  I  thought,  these  people  will  have  to  eat  the  very 
poor  breakfast  that  is  being  prepared  for  us.  It  will 
serve  them  right — the  vulgar,  showy  creatures.  As  we 
were  departing,  however,  Franklin  explained  that  there 
was  an  extra  charge  which  he  had  not  troubled  to  dispute, 
for  something  which  we  had  apparently  not  had.  I 
explained  that  it  was  for  the  meal  we  had  not  eaten. 

Once  more,  then,  we  drove  off  along  more  of  those 
delightful  country  roads  which  in  the  early  morning  sun, 
with  the  fields  glistening  with  dew,  and  laborers  making 
their  way  to  work,  and  morning  birds  on  the  wing,  were 
too  lovely.  The  air,  after  our  stuffy  room,  was  so  re 
freshing,  /  began  to  sing.  Little  white  houses  hugged 
distant  green  hillsides,  their  windows  shining  like  bur 
nished  gold.  Green  branches  hung  over  and  almost 
brushed  our  faces.  The  sky,  the  shade,  the  dew  was 
heavenly.  I  thought  of  Franklin  and  his  father  and  of 


128  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

him  in  his  father's  fields  at  dawn,  looking  at  the  trees— 
those  fog  wrapped  trees  of  dawn — and  wishing  he  was 
an  artist. 

Meanwhile,  my  mind  was  busy  with  the  sharp  con 
trast  this  whole  progress  was  presenting  to  my  tour  of 
Europe,  even  the  poorest  and  most  deserted  regions  I 
visited.  In  England,  France,  Germany,  Italy,  Holland, 
Belgium,  Switzerland,  there  was  so  much  to  see — so 
much  that  was  memorable  or  quaint  or  strange  or  artistic 
— but  here ;  well,  here  there  were  just  towns  like  this  one 
and  Binghamton  and  Scranton  and  Wilkes-Barre,  places 
the  best  for  which  you  could  say  was  that  they  were  brisk 
and  vivid  and  building  something  which  in  the  future 
will  no  doubt  seem  very  beautiful, — I'm  sure  of  it. 

And  yet  I  kept  saying  to  myself  that  notwithstanding 
all  this,  all  I  could  sum  up  against  America  even,  it  was 
actually  better  than  Europe.  And  why?  Well,  because 
of  a  certain  indefinable  something — either  of  hope  or 
courage  or  youth  or  vigor  or  illusion,  what  you  will; 
but  the  average  American,  or  the  average  European 
transplanted  to  America,  is  a  better  or  at  least  a  more 
dynamic  person  than  the  average  European  at  home, 
even  the  Frenchman.  He  has  more  grit,  verve,  humor, 
or  a  lackadaisical  slapdash  method  which  is  at  once  effi 
cient,  self-sustaining,  comforting.  His  soul,  in  spite  of 
all  the  chains  wherewith  the  ruling  giants  are  seeking  to 
fetter  him,  is  free.  As  yet,  regardless  of  what  is  or 
may  be,  he  does  not  appear  to  realize  that  he  is  not 
free  or  that  he  is  in  any  way  oppressed.  There  are  no 
ruling  classes,  to  him.  He  sings,  whistles,  jests,  laughs 
boisterously;  matches  everybody  for  cigars,  beers,  meals; 
chews  tobacco,  spits  freely,  smokes,  swears,  rolls  to  and 
fro,  cocks  his  hat  on  one  side  of  his  head,  and  altogether 
by  and  large  is  a  regular  "hell  of  a  feller."  He  doesn't 
know  anything  about  history,  or  very  little,  and  doesn't 
give  a  damn.  He  doesn't  know  anything  about  art, — but, 
my  God,  who  with  the  eternal  hills  and  all  nature  for  a 
background  cannot  live  without  representative  art?  His 
food  isn't  extraordinarily  good,  though  plentiful,  his 


CHEMUNG  129 

clothes  are  made  by  Stein-Bloch,  or  Hart,  Schaffner  & 
Marx,  and  altogether  he  is  a  noisy,  blatant,  contented 
mess — but  oh,  the  gay,  self  sufficient  soul  of  him!  no 
moans !  no  tears  I  Into  the  teeth  of  destiny  he  marches, 
whistling  "Yankee  Doodle"  or  "Turkey  in  the  Straw." 
In  the  parlance  of  his  own  streets,  "Can  you  beat  him?" 

Nevertheless  my  sympathies  kept  reverting  to  the 
young  innkeeper  and  I  finally  got  out  a  map  to  see  if 
I  could  discover  the  name  of  the  very  small  town  or 
crossroads  where  this  hotel  was  situated.  It  proved  to 
be  Chemung. 

Instantly  I  recalled  the  story  of  a  gubernatorial  aspir 
ant  of  twenty  years  before  who  had  come  from  this  very 
place  or  county  in  New  York.  Previously  a  district  at 
torney  or  lieutenant  governor,  he  had  one  day  been  nom 
inated  for  the  governorship,  on  the  reigning  ticket.  His 
chances  were  splendid.  There  was  scarcely  a  cloud  in 
the  sky.  He  was  believed  to  be  brilliant,  promising,  a 
presidential  possibility  of  the  future.  An  important 
meeting  was  called  in  New  York,  I  believe,  at  Madison 
Square  Garden  very  likely,  to  ratify  and  celebrate  his 
nomination.  All  the  elite  politically  who  customarily 
grace  such  events  were  present.  The  Garden  was  filled. 
But,  alas,  at  the  sound  of  the  applause  called  forth  by 
his  opening  burst  of  oratory,  he  paused  and  took  off  his 
coat — quite  as  he  would  at  an  upstate  rally,  here  in 
Chemung.  The  audience  gasped.  The  sophisticated 
leaders  of  the  city  groaned.  What !  Take  off  your  coat 
at  a  political  address  in  Madison  Square  Garden?  A 
candidate  for  governorship  of  the  state  of  New  York? 
It  completely  destroyed  him.  He  was  never  heard  of 
more.  I,  a  mere  stripling  at  the  time,  brooded  long  over 
this  sudden  turn  of  fortune  as  exemplifying  a  need  to 
discriminate  between  audiences  and  classes.  It  put  a 
cool,  Jesuitical  thought  in  my  mind  that  I  did  not  soon 
forget.  "Never  remove  your  coat  in  the  wrong  place," 
was  a  maxim  that  dwelt  with  me  for  some  time.  And 
here  we  were  in  Chemung,  the  place  to  which  this  man 
subsequently  retired,  to  meditate,  no  doubt,  over  the 


1 30  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

costly  follies  and  errors  we  sometimes  commit  without 
the  ability  or  the  knowledge  to  guard  against  them. 

An  hour  and  a  half  later  we  were  having  breakfast 
at  Elmira,  a  place  much  like  Binghamton,  in  the  cus 
tomary  "Rathskeller-Grill-Cafe  de  Berlin."  This  one 
was  all  embossed  with  gold  paper  and  Teutonic  hunting 
scenes,  and  contained  the  usual  heavy  mission  tables,  to 
say  nothing  of  a  leftover  smell  of  cigarettes  burned 
the  night  before.  There  were  negro  waiters  too,  and 
another  group  of  motorists  having  a  most  elaborate 
breakfast  and  much  talk  of  routes  and  cars  and  distant 
cities.  Here  it  was  necessary  for  us  to  decide  the  course 
of  our  future  progress,  so  we  shortly  set  off  in  search  of 
the  local  automobile  club. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

CHICKEN  AND  WAFFLES  AND  THE  TOON  o'  BATH 

WE  found  an  official  of  the  Elmira  Automobile  Club, 
a  small,  stoop-shouldered,  bald,  eye-sockety  person  who 
greeted  us  with  a  genial  rub  of  his  hands  and  a  hearty 
smirk  as  though  we  were  just  the  persons,  among  all 
others,  whom  he  was  most  pleased  to  see. 

"Come  right  in,  gentlemen,"  he  called,  as  Franklin 
and  I  appeared  in  the  doorway.  "What  can  I  do  for 
you?  Looking  for  maps  or  a  route  or  something ?" 

"Tell  me,"  I  inquired,  anxious  to  make  my  point  at 
once,  "are  there  any  good  roads  due  west  of  here  which 
would  take  us  straight  into  Ohio,  without  going  north  to 
Buffalo  ?" 

He  scratched  his  head. 

"No,  I  don't  think  there  are,"  he  replied;  "most  of 
the  good  roads  are  north  of  here,  around  Rochester, 
where  the  main  line  of  traffic  is.  Now  there  is  a  good 
road — or  a  part  of  one" — and  then  he  commenced  a  long 
rambling  account  of  some  road  that  was  about  to  be 
built — but  as  yet — etc.,  etc.  I  saw  my  idea  of  a  some 
what  different  trip  going  glimmering. 

"But  here,"  he  went  on,  picking  up  one  of  those 
maps  which  various  hotels  and  towns  combine  to  get  up 
to  attract  automobile  trade,  "what's  the  matter  with  the 
Onondaga  trail  from  here  on?  That  takes  you  up 
through  Corning,  Bath,  Avoca,  Dansville,  Geneseo,  and 
Avon,  and  up  there  you  strike  the  main  road  through 
Batavia  right  into  Buffalo.  That's  a  fine  road,  good  hard 
macadam  nearly  all  the  way,  and  when  you  get  to  Avon 
you  strike  one  of  the  best  hotels  anywhere.  When  you 
get  up  there  you  just  roll  your  car  right  into  the  grounds 
— walk  into  the  restaurant  and  ask  'em  to  give  you 


132  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

some  of  their  chicken  and  waffles.  You'll  just  be  about 
ready  for  it  when  you  get  there  and  you'll  thank  me 
for  telling  you." 

I  fancied  I  could  see  the  cloven  hoof  of  the  Avon 
hotel  keeper  mystically  present  in  that  speech.  How 
ever,  far  to  the  left  on  another  branch  of  the  same  trail 
I  saw  my  beloved  Warsaw,  New  York. 

"What's  the  matter  with  the  road  up  through  here?" 
I  asked,  putting  my  finger  on  it. 

"Well,  I'll  tell  you,"  he  said,  "there  it  is  mostly  dirt 
and  there  are  no  good  dirt  roads  as  you  know,  if  youVe 
autoed  much.  A  man  called  up  here  this  morning  and 
wanted  to  know  if  there  were  any  good  dirt  roads  out  of 
here  to  Utica  and  I  said  to  him,  'My  dear  sir,  there  aren't 
any  good  dirt  roads  anywhere.  There  ain't  any  such 
thing.'  " 

I  seemed  to  see  the  Avon  hotel  keeper  smiling  and 
beckoning  once  more — a  chicken  in  one  hand,  a  plate  of 
waffles  in  the  other — but  he  didn't  appeal  to  me  at  all. 
These  hotel  routes  and  these  Americans  who  are  so  quick 
to  capitalize  everything — motor  routes,  scenery,  water 
falls,  everything!  "Curses,  curses,  curses,"  I  said  to  my 
self  softly,  "why  must  everything  be  turned  into  busi 
ness?"  Besides,  many  portions  of  the  roads  over  which 
we  had  come  in  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania  were  dirt 
and  they  were  excellent.  I  smiled  serenely,  determined 
to  make  the  best  of  whatever  happened  and  however 
much  I  might  want  to  go  to  Warsaw,  New  York. 

But  our  friend  seemed  determined  to  send  us  via  Avon 
and  Batavia.  He  went  on  telling  us  how  anxious  he  had 
been  to  convince  the  man  who  had  telephoned  that  there 
were  no  good  dirt  roads,  but  I  was  happy  to  note  that 
apparently  he  had  not  been  successful.  The  man  prob 
ably  knew  something  about  state  and  dirt  roads,  as  we 
had  found  them,  and  refused  to  take  his  direction.  I 
was  pleased  to  think  that  whatever  Franklin  might  be 
concluding,  because  of  his  advice,  we  still  had  some  dis 
tance  yet  to  travel  before  we  would  have  to  decide  not 
to  go  to  Warsaw — all  of  seventyfive  or  a  hundred  miles 


/-V-'V.fUvj* 


-rr;. ,.—  - 

• 

8   vvJS 

'  ViMp- 

-        -      c^ 


BEYOND    ELMIRA 
Early  morning 


CHICKEN  AND  WAFFLES  133 

anyhow.  For,  extending  that  distance  our  proposed 
route  was  directly  toward  Warsaw,  and  that  cheered  me 
a  bit. 

And  now  beyond  Elmira  for  a  distance  of  one  hundred 
and  twenty  miles  or  more,  all  the  way  into  Warsaw,  we 
had  one  of  the  most  delightful  days  of  any — a  perfectly 
heavenly  day,  the  weather  so  fine,  the  sky  so  blue,  and 
not  a  tinge  of  anything  save  harvesting  weather  any 
where.  As  we  rolled  along  the  sound  of  the  reaper  was 
heard  in  the  land — great  mechanical  combinations  of 
engines  and  threshers  and  grain  separators  and  straw 
stack  builders — a  great  flume  or  trough  reaching  high 
in  the  air  and  carrying  out  the  grainless  straw  and  chaff, 
blowing  it  on  a  single  mound.  It  was  really  wonder 
ful  to  see  America's  daily  bread  being  garnered  mile 
after  mile,  and  mile  after  mile. 

And  the  marvelous  herds  of  cattle,  mostly  Holstein, 
which  yield  the  milk  supply  for  the  trains  that  pour 
nightly  and  daily  towards  that  vast  plexus  of  cities  called 
New  York,  with  its  eight  million  people. 

In  this  Pennsylvania-New  York  valley  alone,  which 
seemed  to  stretch  unbroken  from  Wilkes-Barre  to  west 
ern  New  York,  from  the  Chesapeake  really  to  the  falls 
of  the  Geneseo,  there  were  indeed  cattle  on  a  thousand 
hills. 

There  was  too  much  traffic  along  the  first  portion  of 
the  road  out  of  Elmira  and  by  now  I  was  beginning  to 
get  an  idea  of  the  magnitude  of  the  revolution  which 
the  automobile  had  effected.  Thirty  years  ago  these 
roads  would  have  been  traveled  as  elsewhere,  if  at  all> 
by  wagons  and  buggies,  but  now  on  this  Saturday  morn 
ing  the  ways  were  crowded  with  farmers  coming  to  town 
in  automobiles,  or  as  Speed  always  put  it,  "in  autos  and 
Fords."  Why  this  useful  little  machine  should  be  sniffed 
at  is  a  puzzle  to  me,  for  it  seemed  to  look  nearly  as  well 
and  to  travel  quite  as  fast  as  any  of  the  others.  The 
farmers  were  using  it  as  a  family  carryall — taking  in 
sacks  of  wheat  or  other  products  to  town  and  bringing 
home  groceries  and  other  needfuls. 


134  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

In  Corning,  a  town  of  about  ten  or  twelve  thousand 
population,  some  twenty  miles  west  of  Elmira,  we  found 
a  city  as  prosperous  as  most  of  the  others  apparently, 
and  as  naive.  It  being  Saturday,  the  natives  from  the 
surrounding  country  were  beginning  to  come  in,  but  I 
did  not  notice  any  of  that  rural  flavor  which  had  seemed 
to  characterize  them  in  my  youth.  On  leaving  every 
town  where  we  had  loitered  too  long  we  made  a  solemn 
pact  that  we  would  not  waste  so  much  time  in  unimpor 
tant  towns  that  were  nearly  all  alike;  but  whenever  one 
rose  into  view  and  we  dashed  into  a  principal  street  lined 
with  stores  and  crowded  with  people,  it  was  beyond  hu 
man  nature  not  to  get  out  and  look  around  a  little. 
There  was  always  the  excuse  of  picture  cards  for  a  record 
of  our  trip,  or  meals  or  a  drink  of  some  kind  or  even 
popcorn  (Franklin's  favorite),  or  peanuts  or  candy. 
Think  of  it — three  grown  men  getting  out  to  buy  candy ! 

Here  in  Corning  it  was  that  I  first  noticed  that  Frank 
lin  had  a  peculiarly  sharp  nose  and  eye  for  ferreting  out 
ideal  rural  types.  Those  who  have  read  Hamlin  Gar 
land's  "Main  Traveled  Roads"  will  understand  instantly 
what  I  mean — not  the  crude,  obvious,  one  might  almost 
say  burlesque  types,  but  those  more  difficult  and  pathetic 
characters  who  do  their  best  not  to  seem  to  be  of  the 
country  and  yet  who  are  always  so  obviously  of  it.  I 
tried  my  best,  as  Franklin  nudged  my  arm  at  different 
times,  to  formulate  to  myself  what  it  is  about  these  in 
teresting  individuals — the  boy  or  woman  or  young  man 
from  the  country — dressed  in  those  peculiarly  new  and 
store-y  store  clothes  that  makes  them  so  appealing  and 
so  pathetic  to  me.  In  "Main  Traveled  Roads"  one  gets 
a  sense  of  it  all.  Times  have  changed  a  little  since  then 
and  yet  here  were  the  same  types — the  red-cheeked,  wide- 
eyed  boy  in  the  new  brown  suit  and  twentyfive  cent  hat 
looking  at  people  as  if  all  the  world  and  its  every  gesture 
were  a  surprise,  and  the  women  walking  about  streets 
impossible,  one  must  say,  from  a  social  and  intellectual 
point  of  view,  trying  to  look  as  if  they  had  something  to 
do  and  some  place  to  go.  I  always  suspect  them  of 


CHICKEN  AND  WAFFLES  135 

eating  their  meals  in  some  wagon  back  of  some  store — 
a  cold  snack  brought  along  for  the  occasion  or  asking  the 
privilege  of  adding  a  few  things  out  of  a  basket  to  the 
repast  provided,  say,  by  a  glass  of  ice-cream  soda. 

Oh,  the  lovely  roads  by  which  they  came,  the  sylvan 
nooks  where  their  homes  are,  the  small  schoolhouses, 
the  wide  spacious  fields  with  crows  and  blackbirds  and 
bluejays  for  company,  the  grey  snowy  fields  in  winter, 
these  black  filigree  trees  for  a  border — and  the  great 
cities  which  haunt  the  dreams  of  these  boys  and  girls 
and  finally  lure  so  many  of  them  away. 

Beyond  Corning  came  more  delightful  small  towns, 
'Tainted  Post,"  with  a  church  so  singularly  plain,  a  small 
spire  so  thin  and  tall  that  it  was  truly  beautiful;  Camp 
bell,  with  one  of  these  typical  rural  streets  of  homes 
which  make  you  wish  that  you  might  stay  for  days,  visit 
ing  country  relatives;  Savona,  a  hot  country  store  street 
where  Speed  stopped  for  oil  and  gas.  Anent  Savona, 
which  hadn't  a  tree  to  bless  itself  with,  where  Franklin 
and  I  sat  and  baked  while  Speed  replenished  his  stores, 
Franklin  told  me  the  story  of  why  the  principal  street  of 
Carmel,  his  home  town,  was  treeless.  Once  there  had 
been  trees  there,  beautiful  ones,  but  with  the  arrival  of 
the  metropolitan  spirit  and  a  desire  to  catch  passing 
automobile  trade  it  was  decided  to  widen  the  street  some 
what  and  make  it  more  commercial  and  therefore  more 
attractive.  The  idea  which  first  popped  into  the  minds 
of  all  who  desired  metropolitan  improvement  was  that 
the  trees  should  come  down. 

"Why?"  asked  some  lover  of  the  trees  as  things  of 
beauty. 

"Well,  you  don't  see  any  trees  in  Main  Street,  In 
dianapolis,  do  you?"  replied  another  triumphantly. 

The  battle  was  lost  and  won  right  there — Main  Street, 
Indianapolis,  was  the  criterion.  "Are  we  going  to  be 
like  Indianapolis — or  Chicago  or  New  York — or  are 
we  not?"  I  can  hear  some  sturdy  rural  asking.  "If 
not,  let  the  trees  stand." 

What  rural  would  save  any  tree  as  against  being  like 


136  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

New  York,  I'd  like  to  know.  That  is  why,  I  suspect, 
we  baked  for  fifteen  minutes  in  Savona. 

And  then  came  "the  toon  o'  Bath,"  as  we  forever  after 
called  it,  for  a  reason  which  will  appear, — a  dear,  lovely, 
summery  town,  with  a  square  so  delightful  that  on  sight 
of  it  we  instantly  got  out  and  loitered  in  the  shade  for 
over  an  hour,  in  spite  of  our  resolution. 

Here  in  the  east,  for  some  reason,  this  idea  of  a  plain 
green  open  square,  without  any  execrable  reproduction 
of  an  American  Civil  War  soldier  perched  high  aloft 
on  a  tall  shaft,  has  remained  untainted.  Wilkes-Barre, 
New  Milford,  Owego  and  now  Bath  had  one,  and  in 
New  England  and  New  Jersey  I  have  seen  scores.  The 
county  offices  are  as  a  rule  put  around  it,  but  not  in  it, 
as  is  the  rule  farther  west. 

In  the  west — everywhere  west  of  Pennsylvania  and 
sometimes  east  of  it — a  public  square  is  not  complete 
without  a  courthouse  or  at  least  a  soldiers'  or  sailors' 
monument — or  both — planted  in  the  centre  of  it,  and 
these  almost  an  exact  reproduction  of  every  other  court 
house  or  monument  for  one  thousand  miles  about.  The 
idea  of  doing  anything  original  is  severely  frowned  upon. 
Whatever  else  you  may  be  in  America  or  elsewhere,  ap 
parently  you  must  not  be  different.  Hold  fast  to  the 
type,  and  do  as  your  ancestors  did!  Build  all  court 
houses  and  monuments  as  courthouses  and  monuments 
should  be  built — that  is,  true  to  tradition.  If  you  don't 
believe  this,  visit  any  countyseat  between  New  York  and 
Seattle. 

But  this  square,  in  Bath,  like  some  others  in  New 
England  and  that  in  Owego,  was  especially  pleasing  be 
cause  it  had  no  courthouse  and  no  monuments,  merely  a 
bandstand  and  a  great  spread  of  benches  placed  under 
wide-armed  and  sturdy  trees.  Under  their  high  branches, 
which  spread  as  a  canopy  over  the  walks  and  benches 
below,  were  festooned,  on  wires,  a  number  of  lights  for 
the  illumination  of  the  place  at  night.  About  it,  on  the 
different  sides,  were  residences,  churches,  a  public  school, 
some  county  offices,  and  to  the  east  stores,  all  with  a 


FRANKLIN    DREAMS    OVER    A    RIVER    BEYOND    SAVONA 


CHICKEN  AND  WAFFLES  137 

peaceful,  rural  flavor.  Several  farmer  families  were 
eating  their  meals  from  baskets  as  they  sat  in  wagons, 
their  horses  unhitched  and  fastened  behind.  On  the 
benches  were  seated  a  number  of  old  soldiers  idling  in 
the  shade.  Why  old  soldiers  should  be  so  numerous  at 
this  day  and  date  was  more  than  I  could  understand,  and 
I  said  so.  It  was  now  fiftyfour  years  since  the  war  be 
gan,  and  here  they  were,  scores  of  them  apparently,  all 
fairly  hale  and  looking  scarcely  sixtyfive.  They  must 
have  been  at  least  seventy  years  each  to  have  been  of 
any  service  in  the  great  war  of  the  rebellion. 

Near  here,  we  discovered,  there  was  an  old  soldiers' 
home — a  state  home — and  this  being  Saturday  afternoon, 
the  streets  were  full  of  them.  They  looked  to  be  a 
crotchety,  cantankerous  crew.  Later  on  we  saw  many  of 
them  in  the  road  leading  out  to  their  institution — drunk. 
In  order  to  strike  up  a  conversation  with  some  of  the 
old  soldiers,  we  asked  three  of  them  sitting  on  a  bench 
about  a  drunken  woman  who  was  pirouetting  before  them 
in  a  frowzy,  grimy  gaiety. 

"That,"  said  one,  a  little,  thin-shouldered,  clawy  type 
of  man  with  a  high,  cracked  voice,  a  clownish  expression, 
and  a  laugh  as  artificial  and  mechanical  as  any  laugh 
could  be,  a  sort  of  standard,  everyday  habit  laugh,  "Oh, 
that's  the  Pete  and  Duck."  (I  give  it  as  it  sounded.) 

"The  Pete  and  Duck!"  I  exclaimed. 

"Yes,  sir,  the  Pete  and  Duck" — and  then  came  the 
high,  cackling,  staccato  laugh.  "That's  what  they  call 
her  round  here,  the  Pete  and  Duck.  I  dunno  howsoever 
they  come  to  call  her  that,  but  that's  what  they  call  her, 

the  Pete  and  Duck,  and  a  drunken  old she  is,  too, 

— just  an  old  drunken  girl" — and  then  he  went  off  into 
a  gale  of  pointless  laughter,  slapping  his  knees  and  open 
ing  his  mouth  very  wide. 

"That's  all  I've  ever  hearn  her  called.  Ain't  that  so, 
Eddie — he,  he !  ho,  ho !  ha,  ha  !  Yes — that's  what  they 
allus  call  'er — the  Pete  and  Duck.  She's  nothin'  but 
just  a  poor  old  drunken  fool  like  many  another  in  this 
here  toon  o'  Bath — he,  he !  ho,  ho !  ha,  ha ! 


138  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

"But  then  she  ain't  the  only  funny  thing  in  Bath 
neither.  There's  a  buildin'  they're  puttin'  up  over  there," 
he  continued,  uthat  has  front  and  back  but  no  sides — 
the  only  buildin'  in  the  toon  o'  Bath  that  ain't  got  no 
sides  but  just  front  and  back.  He,  he !  ha,  ha !  ho,  ho !" 

We  looked  in  the  direction  of  this  building,  but  it  was 
nothing  more  than  an  ordinary  store  building,  being 
erected  between  two  others  by  the  party  wall  process. 
It  was  a  bank,  apparently,  and  the  front  was  being  put 
together  out  of  white  marble. 

"Yes,  sir,  the  only  buildin'  in  the  toon  o'  Bath  that 
ain't  got  no  sides,  but  just  front  and  back,"  and  he  lapsed 
again  into  his  vacant,  idle  laughter.  Evidently  he  had 
been  given  over  to  the  task  of  making  sport,  or  trying  to, 
out  of  the  merest  trifles  for  so  many  years  that  he  had 
lost  all  sense  of  proportion  and  value.  The  least  thing, 
where  there  was  so  little  to  be  gay  over,  took  on  exag 
gerated  lines  of  the  comic.  He  was  full  of  unconsicous 
burlesque.  Suddenly  he  added  with  a  touch  of  serious 
ness,  "and  they  say  that  the  front  is  goin'  to  cost  seven 
teen  thousand  dollars.  Jee-hosaphat!"  He  hung  onto 
the  "Jee"  with  breathless  persistence.  It  was  really  evi 
dent  in  this  case  that  seventeen  thousand  dollars  repre 
sented  an  immense  sum  to  his  mind. 

It  was  pathetic  to  see  him  sitting  there  in  his  faded, 
almost  ragged  clothes,  and  all  these  other  old  lonely  sol 
diers  about.  I  began  to  feel  the  undertow  of  this  clanking 
farce  called  life.  What  a  boneyard  old  age  seems,  any 
how! 

There  was  another  old  soldier,  tall,  heavy,  oleaginous, 
with  some  kind  of  hip  trouble,  who  explained  that  he 
lived  in  Brooklyn  up  to  the  year  previous,  and  had 
been  with  Grant  before  Richmond  and  in  the  battle 
in  the  Wilderness.  These  endless,  ancient  tales  seemed 
a  little  pale  just  now  beside  the  heavy  storms  of  battle 
raging  in  Europe.  And  I  could  not  help  thinking  how 
utterly  indifferent  life  is  to  the  individual.  How  trivial, 
and  useless  and  pointless  we  become  in  age !  What's  the 
good  of  all  the  clatter  and  pathos  and  fuss  about  war 


CHICKEN  AND  WAFFLES  139 

to  these  ancients?  How  does  patriotism  and  newspaper 
bluster  and  the  fighting  of  other  men's  battles  avail  them, 
now  they  are  old?  Here  they  were,  stranded,  wrecked, 
forgotten.  Who  cares,  really,  what  becomes  of  them? 
Fifty  years  ago  they  were  fawned  upon  for  the  moment 
as  the  saviors  of  their  country.  And  now  they  hobble 
about  such  squares  as  this,  condemned  by  the  smug  gentry 
of  small  towns,  despised  for  indulging  in  the  one  salve 
to  disillusioned  minds  and  meditating  on  things  that  are 
no  more.  I  wanted  to  leave,  and  we  soon  did  leave, 
anxious  to  feel  the  soothing  waves  of  change. 

Although  in  Bath  the  sun  seemed  suddenly  overcast 
by  these  reflections  in  regard  to  the  remorseless  tread  of 
time,  outside,  in  the  open  fields,  it  was  as  inspiriting  as 
ever.  A  few  miles  out  and  we  came  to  the  banks  of  a 
small  river  which  flowed  for  a  number  of  miles  through 
this  region,  tumbling  thinly  over  rough  boulders,  or  form 
ing  itself  into  deep,  grey-green  pools.  Gone  were  the  an 
cient  soldiers  in  blue,  the  miseries  of  a  hag  like  "the  Pete 
and  Duck."  Just  here  the  hills  seemed  to  recede,  and 
the  land  was  very  flat,  like  a  Dutch  landscape.  We  came 
to  a  section  of  the  stream  where  it  was  sheltered  by 
groves  of  trees  which  came  to  its  very  edge,  and  by 
small  thickets  of  scrub  willow.  Just  below  a  little  way, 
some  girls,  one  of  them  in  a  red  jacket,  were  fishing.  A 
little  farther  a  few  Holstein  cows  were  standing  in  the 
water,  knee  deep.  It  looked  so  inviting  that  I  began  to 
urge  that  we  all  take  a  swim.  A  lovely  bank  coming 
into  view,  and  an  iron  bridge  above,  which  was  a  poem 
among  trees,  Franklin  was  inspired.  "That  looks  rather 
inviting,"  he  said. 

As  usual,  Speed  had  something  to  do — heaven  only 
knows  what — polishing  some  bolts,  probably.  But 
Franklin  and  I  struck  out  through  waving  patterns  of 
ox-eye  daisies  and  goldenrod  to  the  drab  and  pea  green 
willow  groves,  where,  amid  rank  growths  of  weeds  and 
whitish  pebbles  and  stones,  we  presently  reached  the 
water's  edge  and  a  little  hillock  of  grass  at  the  foot  of  a 
tree.  Here  on  bushes  and  twigs  we  hung  our  clothes  and 


i4o  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

went  out  into  the  bright,  tumbling  waters.  The  current 
was  very  swift,  though  very  shallow — no  deeper  than 
just  above  the  knees.  By  clearing  away  the  stones  and 
lying  down  on  the  pebbles  and  sand  underneath,  you 
could  have  the  water  race  over  you  at  breakneck  speed, 
and  feel  as  though  you  were  being  fingered  by  mystic 
hands.  It  was  about  all  we  could  do,  lying  thus,  to  brace 
ourselves  so  that  the  stream  would  not  keep  moving 
us  on. 

The  sky,  between  the  walls  of  green  wood,  was  espe 
cially  blue.  The  great  stones  about  us  were  all  slippery 
with  a  thin,  green  moss,  and  yet  so  clean  and  pretty,  and 
the  water  gurgled  and  sipped.  Lying  on  my  back  I 
could  see  robins  and  bluejays  and  catbirds  in  the  trees 
about.  I  amused  myself  kicking  my  feet  in  the  air  and 
throwing  stones  at  the  farther  bank  and  watching  Frank 
lin's  antics.  He  had  a  strong,  lean  white  body,  which 
showed  that  it  had  been  shaped  in  hayfields  in  his  youth. 
His  white  hair  and  straight  nose  made  him  look  some 
what  like  an  ancient  Etruscan,  stalking  about  in  the  waters. 
We  were  undisturbed  by  any  sound,  and  I  could  have 
spent  the  rest  of  the  day  lying  in  this  babbling  current — 
it  was  so  warm — listening  to  the  birds,  watching  the  wind 
shake  the  leaves,  and  contemplating  the  blue  sky.  It 
was  so  warm  that  when  one  sat  up  the  wind  and  sun 
soon  dried  the  flesh.  I  was  loath  to  leave. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

MR.    HUBBARD    AND    AN    AUTOMOBILE    FLIRTATION 

AVOCA,  just  beyond  here,  was  a  pleasant  little  town, 
with  a  white  church  steeple  drowsing  in  the  afternoon 
sun.  We  tried  to  get  something  to  eat  and  couldn't — 
or  rather  could  only  obtain  sandwiches,  curse  them! — 
and  ham  sandwiches  at  that.  My  God,  how  I  do  hate 
ham  sandwiches  when  I  am  hungry  enough  to  want  a 
decent  meal!  And  a  place  called  Arkport  was  not  bet 
ter,  though  we  did  get  some  bananas  there — eight — and 
I  believe  I  ate  them  all.  I  forget,  but  I  think  I  did. 
Franklin  confined  himself  almost  exclusively  to  popcorn 
and  candy! 

At  Avoca  we  learned  of  two  things  which  altered  our 
course  considerably. 

First,  in  leisurely  dressing  after  our  bath,  Franklin 
began  browsing  over  a  map  to  see  where  we  were  and 
what  the  name  of  this  stream  was,  when  suddenly  his 
eye  lighted  on  the  magic  name  of  East  Aurora.  (Imag 
ine  a  town  named  East  Aurora!)  Here  had  lived  until 
recently  (when  the  Lusitania  went  down  he  and  his  wife 
were  drowned)  a  certain  Elbert  Hubbard,  author,  pub 
lisher,  lecturer,  editor,  manufacturer  of  "art"  furniture 
and  articles  of  virtu,  whose  personal  characteristics  and 
views  seemed  to  have  aroused  more  feverish  interest  in 
the  minds  of  a  certain  type  of  American  than  almost  any 
other  man's,  unless,  perchance,  it  might  have  been  Wil 
liam  Jennings  Bryan's,  or  Billy  Sunday's. 

In  my  youth,  when  he  was  first  writing  his  interest 
ing  "Little  Journeys  to  the  Homes  of  Good  Men  and 
Great"  (think  of  that  for  a  title!),  I  thought  him  won 
derful  too.  I  never  heard  of  his  stirring  those  hard, 
sophisticated,  unregerenate  sanctums  and  halls  of  the 

141 


i42  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

great  cities  where  lurk  the  shrewd,  the  sharp  and  evil, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  dullest  of  the  dull;  but  when  it  came 
to  the  rural  places,  there  he  shone.  In  the  realms  of  the 
vast  and  far  flung  Chautauqua,  with  its  halls  and  shrines 
of  homage,  he  was  au  fait,  a  real  prophet.  Here  he  was 
looked  up  to,  admired,  adored.  These  people  bought 
his  furniture  and  read  his  books,  and  in  the  entertainment 
halls  of  public  schools,  clubs,  societies,  circles  for  the 
promotion  of  this,  that,  or  the  other,  they  quoted  his 
thoughts.  Personally,  I  early  outgrew  Mr.  Hubbard. 
He  appealed  to  me  for  about  four  months,  in  my  twenty- 
fourth  or  twentyfifth  year,  and  then  he  was  gone  again. 
Later  on  his  Roycroft  furniture,  book  bindings,  lamps 
and  the  like  came  to  have  a  savage  distaste  to  me.  They 
seemed  impossible,  the  height  of  the  inane;  but  he  went 
on  opening  salesrooms  in  New  York,  Chicago  and  else 
where,  and  increasing  his  fame.  He  came  to  be  little 
more  than  a  shabby  charlatan,  like  so. many  of  those  other 
itinerant  evangelists  that  infest  America. 

This  great  man  had  established  himself  years  before, 
in  this  place  called  East  Aurora,  near  Buffalo,  and 
there  had  erected  what  I  always  imagined  were  extensive 
factories  or  studios,  or  mere  rooms  for  the  manufacture 
and  storage  and  sale  of  all  the  many  products  of  art  on 
which  he  put  the  stamp  of  his  approval.  Here  were 
printed  all  those  rare  and  wonderful  books  in  limp 
leather  and  handstitched  silk  linings  and  a  host  of  artis 
tic  blank  flyleaves,  which  always  sickened  me  a  little 
when  I  looked  at  them.  Here  were  sawed  and  planed 
and  hand  polished,  no  doubt,  all  the  perfect  woods  that 
went  into  his  Roycroft  furniture.  Here  were  hammered 
and  polished  and  carefully  shaped  the  various  metals  that 
went  into  his  objects  of  art.  I  always  felt  that  really  it 
must  be  a  remarkable  institution,  though  I  cared  GO  whit 
for  the  books  or  furniture  or  objects  of  art.  They  were 
too  fixy. 

In  all  his  writings  he  was  the  preacher  of  the  severe, 
the  simple,  the  durable — that  stern  beauty  that  has  its 
birth  in  necessity,  its  continuance  in  use.  With  all  such 


AN  AUTOMOBILE  FLIRTATION        143 

products,  as  he  himself  was  forever  indicating,  art  was 
a  by-product, — a  natural  outcome  of  the  perfection  im 
pulse  of  the  life  principle.  Somewhere  in  all  nature  was 
something  which  wanted  and  sought  beauty,  the  clear, 
strong,  natural  beauty  of  strength  and  necessity.  Who 
shaped  the  tiger?  Who  gave  perfection  to  the  lion? 
Behold  the  tree.  See  the  hill.  Were  they  not  beautiful, 
and  did  they  not  conform  to  the  laws  of  necessity  and 
conditional  use?  Verily,  verily. 

Whenever  I  looked  at  any  of  his  books  or  objects  of 
art  or  furniture,  while  they  had  that  massiveness  or 
durability  or  solidity  which  should  be  in  anything  built 
for  wear  and  severe  use,  they  had  something  else  which 
did  not  seem  to  suggest  these  needs  at  all.  There  was 
a  luxuriousness  of  polish  and  ornamentation  and  inutile 
excrescence  about  them  which  irritated  me  greatly. 
"Here  is  a  struggle/'  I  said  to  myself,  "to  mix  together 
two  things  which  can  never  mix — oil  and  water, — luxury 
and  extreme,  rugged  durability."  It  was  as  if  one  took 
Abraham  Lincoln  and  dressed  him  in  the  drawingroom 
clothes  of  a  fop,  curling  his  hair,  perfuming  his  beard, 
encasing  his  feet  in  patent  leather  shoes,  and  then  said, 
"Gentlemen,  behold  the  perfect  man." 

Well,  behold  him! 

And  so  it  was  with  this  furniture  and  these  art  objects. 
They  were  log  cabin  necessities  decked  out  in  all  the 
gimcrackery  of  the  Petit  Trianon.  They  weren't  log- 
cabin  necessities  any  more,  and  they  certainly  bore  no 
close  relationship  to  the  perfection  of  a  Heppelwhite  or 
a  Sheraton,  or  the  convincing  charms  of  the  great  periods. 
They  were  just  a  combination  of  country  and  city,  as 
their  inventor  understood  them,  without  having  the  real 
merit  of  either,  and  to  me  they  seemed  to  groan  of  their 
unhappy  union.  It  was  as  if  a  man  had  taken  all  the 
worst  and  best  in  American  life  and  fastened  them  to 
gether  without  really  fusing  them.  It  was  a  false  idea. 
The  author  of  them  was  an  artistic  clown. 

But  when  it  came  to  the  possibility  of  seeing  his  place 
I  was  interested  enough.  Only  a  few  weeks  before  the 


144  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

country  had  been  ringing  with  the  news  of  his  death  and 
the  tragedy  of  it.  Long,  appreciative  editorials  had  ap 
peared  in  all  our  American  papers  (on  what  subjects 
will  not  the  American  papers  write  long,  appreciative 
editorials!).  So  I  was  interested,  as  was  Franklin.  He 
suggested  going  to  East  Eurora,  and  I  was  pleased  to 
note  that  if  we  went  there  we  would  have  to  go  through 
Warsaw,  New  York.  That  settled  it.  I  agreed  at  once. 

Another  thing  that  we  discussed  at  Avoca  was  that 
if  we  took  the  best  road  from  there  and  followed  it  to 
Portageville,  we  would  be  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of 
the  Falls  of  the  Geneseo,  "and  they're  as  fine  as  anything 
I  ever  see  in  America,"  was  the  way  one  countryman  put 
it.  "I've  seen  Niagara  and  them  falls  down  there  on 
the  Big  Kanawha  in  West  Virginia,  but  I  never  expect  to 
see  anything  finer  than  these."  It  was  the  village  black 
smith  and  garage  owner  of  Avoca  who  was  talking.  And 
Portageville  was  right  on  the  road  to  Warsaw  and  East 
Aurora. 

We  were  off  in  a  trice — ham  sandwiches  in  hand. 

It  was  while  we  were  speeding  out  of  Arkport  and  on 
our  way  to  Canaseraga  and  the  Falls  of  the  Geneseo  that 
I  had  my  first  taste  of  what  might  be  called  an  automo 
bile  flirtation.  It  was  just  after  leaving  Arkport  and 
while  we  were  headed  for  a  town  called  Canaseraga  that 
we  caught  up  with  and  passed  three  maids  in  a  machine 
somewhat  larger  than  our  own,  who  were  being  piloted 
at  a  very  swift  pace  by  a  young  chauffeur.  It  is  a  rule 
of  the  road  and  a  state  law  in  most  states  that  unless  a 
machine  wishes  to  keep  the  lead  by  driving  at  the  perv 
mitted  speed  it  must  turn  to  the  right  to  permit  any 
machine  approaching  from  the  rear  and  signaling  to  pass. 

Most  chauffeurs  and  all  passengers  I  am  sure  resent 
doing  this.  It  is  a  cruel  thing  to  have  to  admit  that  any 
machine  can  go  faster  than  yours  or  that  you  are  in  the 
mood  to  take  the  dust  of  anyone.  Still  if  a  machine  is 
trailing  you  and  making  a  great  row  for  you  to  give  way, 
what  can  you  do,  unless  you  seek  open  conflict  and  pos 
sibly  disaster — a  wreck — for  chauffeurs  and  owners  are 


AN  AUTOMOBILE  FLIRTATION         145 

occasionally  choleric  souls  and  like  to  pay  out  stubborn, 
greedy  "road  hogs,"  even  if  in  paying  them  out  you  come 
to  grief  yourself.  Franklin  had  just  finished  a  legal 
argument  of  this  kind  some  few  weeks  before,  he  told  us, 
in  which  some  man  who  would  not  give  the  road  and 
had  been  "sideswiped"  by  his  car  (Franklin  being  absent 
and  his  chauffeur  who  was  out  riding  choleric)  had  been 
threatening  to  bring  suit  for  physical  as  well  as  material 
injury.  It  was  this  threat  to  sue  for  physical  injuries 
which  brought  about  a  compromise  in  Franklin's  favor, 
for  it  is  against  the  law  to  threaten  anyone,  particularly 
by  mail,  as  in  this  instance;  and  so  Franklin,  by  threat 
ening  in  return,  was  able  to  escape. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  these  three  maids,  or  their  chauf 
feur,  when  we  first  came  up  refused  to  give  the  road, 
although  they  did  increase  their  speed  in  an  effort  to 
keep  it.  One  of  them,  a  gay  creature  in  a  pink  hat, 
looked  back  and  half  smiled  at  our  discomfiture.  I  took 
no  more  interest  in  her  than  did  any  of  the  others  appar 
ently,  at  the  time,  for  in  a  situation  of  this  kind  how  is 
one  to  tell  which  is  the  favored  one? 

As  an  able  chauffeur,  the  master  of  a  good  machine, 
and  the  ex-leader  of  the  Lincoln  Highway  procession  for 
a  certain  distance,  how  was  a  man  like  Speed  to  take  a 
rebuff  like  this?  Why,  as  all  good  and  true  chauffeurs 
should,  by  increasing  his  own  speed  and  trailing  them  so 
close  and  making  such  a  row  that  they  would  have  to 
give  way.  This  he  did  and  so  for  a  distance  of  three 
or  four  miles  we  were  traveling  in  a  cloud  of  dirt  and 
emitting  a  perfect  uproar  of  squawks.  In  consequence 
we  finally  were  permitted  to  pass,  not  without  certain 
unkind  and  even  contemptuous  looks  flung  in  our  direc 
tion,  as  who  should  say:  uYou  think  yourselves  very 
smart,  don't  you?" — although  in  the  case  of  the  maiden 
in  the  pink  hat  it  did  not  seem  to  me  that  her  rage  was 
very  great.  She  was  too  amused  and  cheerful.  I  sat 
serene  and  calm,  viewing  the  surrounding  landscape,  only 
I  could  not  help  noting  that  the  young  ladies  were  quite 
attractive  and  that  the  one  in  the  pink  hat  was  interested 


146  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

in  someone  in  our  car — Speed  or  Franklin,  I  decided — 
preferably  Franklin,  since  he  looked  so  very  smart  in 
his  carefully  cut  clothes.  I  did  not  think  it  could  be 
myself.  As  for  Speed,  mustachios  up  and  a  cigarette 
between  his  teeth,  he  looked  far  too  handsome  to  con 
descend  to  flirt  with  a  mere  country  — heiress,  say.  These 
chauffeurs — you  know!  But  a  little  later,  as  we  were 
careening  along,  having  attained  a  good  lead  as  we 
thought  and  taking  our  ease,  what  should  come  trailing 
up  behind  us  but  this  same  car,  making  a  great  clatter, 
and  because  of  a  peculiar  wide  width  of  road  and  our 
loitering  mood,  passing  us  before  we  could  say  "Jack 
Robinson.'*  Again  the  maid  in  the  pink  hat  smiled — it 
seemed  to  me — but  at  whom?  And  again  Speed  bustled 
to  the  task  of  overtaking  them.  I  began  to  sit  up  and 
take  notice. 

What  a  chase!  There  was  a  big,  frail  iron  bridge 
over  a  rocky,  shallow  stream  somewhere,  which  carried 
a  sign  reading:  "Bridge  weak,  walk  your  horses.  Speed 
limit  four  miles  an  hour."  I  think  we  crossed  it  in  one 
bound.  There  was  a  hollow  where  the  road  turned 
sharply  under  a  picturesque  cliff  and  a  house  in  a  green 
field  seemed  to  possess  especial  beauty  because  of  a  grove 
of  pines.  At  another  time  I  would  have  liked  to  linger 
here.  A  sign  read:  "Danger  ahead.  Sharp  Curve.  Go 
Slow."  We  went  about  it  as  if  we  were  being  pursued 
by  the  devil  himself.  Then  came  a  rough  place  of  stone 
somewhere,  where  ordinarily  Speed  would  have  slowed 
down  and  announced  that  he  would  "like  to  have  a  picture 
of  this  road."  Do  you  think  we  slowed  down  this  time? 
Not  much.  We  went  over  it  as  if  it  were  as  smooth 
as  glass.  I  was  nearly  jounced  out  of  the  car. 

Still  we  did  not  catch  up,  quite.  The  ladies  or  the 
chauffeur  or  all  were  agreed  apparently  to  best  us,  but 
we  trailed  them  close  and  they  kept  looking  back  and 
laughing  at  us.  The  pink-hatted  one  was  all  dimples. 

"There  you  are,  Mr.  Dreiser,"  called  Speed.  "She's 
decided  which  one  she  wants.  She  doesn't  seem  to  see 
any  of  the  rest  of  us." 


AN  AUTOMOBILE  FLIRTATION        147 

Speed  could  be  horribly  flattering  at  times. 

"No,"  I  said,  "without  a  mustache  or  a  cigarette  or 
a  long  Napoleonic  lock  over  my  brow,  never.  It's  Frank 
lin  here." 

Franklin  smiled — as  Julius  Caesar  might  have  smiled. 

"Which  one  is  it  you're  talking  about?'1  he  inquired 
innocently. 

"Which  one? — you  sharp!"  I  scoffed.  "Don't  come 
the  innocent,  guileless  soul  on  me.  You  know  whom 
she's  looking  at.  The  rest  of  us  haven't  a  chance." 

Inwardly  I  was  wondering  whether  by  any  chance 
freak  of  fancy  she  could  have  taken  a  tentative  interest 
in  me.  While  there  is  life — you  know! 

Alas,  they  beat  us  and  for  awhile  actually  disappeared 
because  of  a  too  rough  stretch  at  one  point  and  then, 
as  I  had  given  up  all  hope  of  seeing  them  any  more,  there 
they  were,  just  a  little  ahead  of  us,  in  the  midst  of  a 
most  beatific  landscape;  and  they  were  loitering — yes, 
they  were ! — people  can  loiter,  even  in  motors. 

My  mind  was  full  of  all  the  possibilities  of  a  gay, 
cheerful  flirtation.  Whose  wouldn't  be,  on  a  summery 
evening  like  this,  with  a  car  full  of  girls  and  one  bolder 
and  prettier  than  the  others,  smiling  back  at  you.  The 
whole  atmosphere  was  one  of  romance.  It  was  after 
four  now,  with  that  rather  restful  holiday  feeling  that 
comes  into  the  air  of  a  Saturday  afternoon  when  every 
laborer  and  rich  man  is  deciding  to  knock  off  for  the  day 
and  "call  it  a  day,"  as  they  express  it,  and  you  are  won 
dering  why  there  is  any  need  to  hurry  over  anything. 
The  sky  was  so  blue,  the  sun  so  warm.  If  you  had  been 
there  you  would  have  voted  to  sit  on  the  grass  of  one 
of  these  lovely  slopes  and  talk  things  over.  I  am  sure 
you  would. 

Alas,  for  some  distance  now  we  had  been  encounter 
ing  signs  indicating  that  a  place  called  Hornell  was  near 
and  not  on  our  route.  It  was  off  to  the  left  or  south 
and  we  were  headed  north,  Canaseraga-ward.  If  our 
car  turned  north  at  the  critical  juncture  of  the  dividing 
roads,  would  they  miss  us  if  we  did  not  follow  them 


148  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

and  turn  back,  or  was  it  not  our  duty  to  get  the  lead 
and  show  them  which  way  we  were  going,  or  failing  that, 
follow  them  into  Hornell  for  a  bit  of  food  or  some 
thing?  I  began  to  puzzle. 

"How  about  Hornell,  for  dinner?"  I  suggested  mildly. 
"I  see  that  these  signs  indicate  a  place  of  about  ten 
thousand." 

"What's  got  into  you?"  exclaimed  my  host.  "Didn't 
you  just  eat  eight  bananas?" 

"Oh,  I  know;  but  bananas,  in  this  air " 

"But  it  isn't  any  more  than  four  thirty.  It  would 
only  be  five  by  the  time  we  got  there.  I  thought  you 
wanted  to  see  the  falls  yet  tonight — and  Warsaw?" 

"I  did — only — you  know  how  beautiful  falls  are  likely 
to  be  in  the  morning " 

"Oh,  of  course,  I  see — only — but,  seriously,  do  you 
think  we'd  better?  It  might  turn  out  all  right,  but  again, 
there  are  three  of  them,  and  two  of  them  are  not  very 
good  looking  and  we're  only  two  actually." 

"Right !    Right !"  I  sighed.    "Well,  if  it  must  be " 

I  sank  heavily  against  the  cushion. 

And  then  they  did  let  us  pass  them,  not  far  from  the 
fatal  juncture.  Just  as  we  neared  it  they  decided  to 
pass  us  and  turned  off  toward  Hornell. 

"Oh,  heaven!  heaven!  Oh,  woe!  woe!"  I  sighed* 
"And  she's  looking  back.  How  can  such  things  be?" 

Speed  saw  the  point  as  quickly  as  anyone.  Our  bet 
ter  judgment  would  naturally  have  asserted  itself  any 
how,  I  presume. 

"We  turn  to  the  right  here,  don't  we?"  he  called  chip- 
perly,  as  we  neared  the  signpost. 

"Of  course,  of  course,"  I  called  gaily.  "Don't  we, 
Franklin?" 

"Yes,  that's  the  way,"  he  smiled,  and  off  we  went, 
northwest,  while  they  were  going  southwest. 

I  began  to  wonder  then  whether  they  would  have 
sense  enough  to  turn  back  and  follow  us,  but  they  didn't. 

"And  it  is  such  a  lovely  afternoon,"  I  said  to  my 
self.  "I'd  like  to  see  Hornell." 


AN  AUTOMOBILE  FLIRTATION         149 

uThat  was  a  good  little  car  they  had,"  called  back 
Speed  consolingly.  "That  girl  in  the  pink  hat  certainly 
had  a  fancy  for  someone  here." 

"Not  me,"  said  Franklin.     "I  know  that." 
"Not  me,"  I  replied.     "She  never  looked  at  me." 
"Well,  I  know  damn  well  she  never  looked  at  me," 
added  Speed.    "She  must  have  liked  the  car." 
We  both  laughed. 
I  wonder  what  sort  of  place  Hornell  is,  anyhow? 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  REV.  J.  CADDEN  MCMICKENS 

THE  last  twelve  miles  of  the  run  into  Portageville  had 
seemed  if  anything  the  most  perfect  of  all.  Before  we 
reached  Canaseraga  we  traversed  a  number  of  miles  of 
dirt  road — uone  of  the  finest  dirt  roads  anywhere,"  a 
local  enthusiast  described  it, — and  it  was  excellent,  very 
much  above  the  average.  After  Canaseraga  it  continued 
for  twelve  miles,  right  into  Portageville  and  the  Falls, 
and  even  on  to  Warsaw  and  East  Aurora,  some  forty 
miles  farther,  as  we  found  out  later.  Following  it  we 
skirted  a  hillside  with  a  fine  valley  below  it,  and  few,  if 
any,  houses  to  evidence  the  thriving  farm  life  which  the 
fields  seemed  to  suggest.  Evening  gnats  were  whirling 
everywhere.  Breaths  of  cool  air  were  beginning  to  ema 
nate  from  the  grove  of  woods  which  we  occasionally 
passed.  The  long  rays  of  the  sun  slanted  so  heavily  that 
they  came  under  my  visor  and  found  my  eyes.  A  fine 
vigorous  type  of  farm  boy  swinging  along  with  an  axe 
over  his  shoulder,  and  beads  of  perspiration  on  his  brow, 
informed  us  that  we  were  on  the  right  road.  I  envied 
him  his  pink  cheeks  and  his  lithe  body  and  his  clear  blue 
eyes. 

But  the  Falls,  when  we  found  them,  were  not  quite 
all  that  I  expected.  Three  Falls — an  upper,  a  lower  and 
a  middle — were  all  included  in  a  park  called  "Letch- 
worth,"  but  it  did  not  seem  to  me  that  much  parking  had 
been  accomplished.  A  great  house  near  them  at  the  spot 
where  a  railroad  crosses  on  a  high  trestle,  deceived  us 
into  thinking  that  we  had  found  a  delightful  hotel  for 
the  night;  but  no,  it  was  an  institution  of  some  kind. 
Deep  down  in  a  valley  below  the  Falls  we  found  Port 
ageville,  a  small,  crossroads  place  that  looked  for  all  the 

150 


REV.  J.  CADDEN  McMICKENS          151 

world  like  one  of  those  cowboy  towns  one  sees  so  per 
sistently  displayed  in  the  moving  pictures.  There  were 
two  or  three  frame  hotels  of  drab  or  green  shades,  facing 
a  large  open  square,  and  a  collection  of  small  white  frame 
houses,  with  a  host  of  rather  primitive  looking  Americans 
sitting  outside  the  hotels  in  rocking  or  arm  chairs,  the 
men  in  their  shirt  sleeves.  Franklin,  who  is  precise  in 
his  apparel,  was  rather  irritated,  I  think.  He  was  not 
expecting  anything  quite  so  crude.  We  inquired  as  to 
rooms  and  meals  and  found  that  we  could  have  both,  only 
the  evening  meal  should  be  eaten  very  soon,  if  we  wanted 
any.  The  hour  for  it  was  from  six  to  seven,  with  no  a  la 
carte  service. 

The  individual  who  volunteered  this  information  was 
a  little,  short,  stout  man  in  belted  trousers  and  shirt 
sleeves  who  stood  beside  the  car  as  it  lay  alongside  the 
hotel  platform,  picking  his  teeth  with  a  toothpick.  He 
was  so  blandly  unconscious  of  the  fact  that  the  process 
might  be  a  little  annoying  that  he  was  amusing.  I  got  the 
feeling  that  things  would  not  be  so  comfortable  here  as 
they  might  be,  and  so  I  was  glad  when  Franklin  suggested 
that  we  seek  a  more  perfect  view  of  the  Falls,  which 
someone  had  said  was  to  be  obtained  from  below  the 
Falls.  It  would  take  only  ten  or  fifteen  minutes,  so  the 
proprietor  suggested, — straight  up  the  road  we  were  on 
— so  we  went  on  seeking  it.  We  did  not  return. 

In  the  first  place,  we  could  not  find  the  view  indicated, 
and  in  the  second  place,  we  encountered  a  man  who 
wanted  to  ride  and  who  told  such  a  queer  story  of  being 
robbed  of  his  bicycle  while  assisting  another  man  to  repair 
his  machine,  that  we  began  to  suspect  he  was  a  little  crazy 
or  that  he  had  some  scheme  in  mind  of  robbing  us, — just 
which  we  could  not  determine.  But  in  parleying  with  him 
and  baffling  him  by  suggesting  we  were  going  back  into 
the  village  instead  of  the  way  he  thought  we  were  going, 
we  lost  so  much  time  that  it  was  night,  and  we  did  not 
think  we  would  get  a  decent  meal  if  we  did  return.  So 
we  questioned  another  stranger  as  to  the  route  to  War- 


152  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

saw,  found  that  it  was  only  twenty  miles,  and  struck  out 
for  it. 

Over  a  road  that  was  singularly  smooth  for  a  dirt 
one,  and  through  land  as  flat  as  Illinois,  a  tableland  on 
the  top  of  a  ridge, — which  proved  the  last  we  were  to 
see — we  raced  Warsaw-ward.  It  was  strangely  like  my 
school  days  home,  or  I  romanticised  myself  into  the  be 
lief  that  it  was.  It  was  the  same  size  as  Warsaw,  In 
diana,  when  I  left  it — thirtyfive  hundred — and  its  prin 
cipal  east  and  west  street,  as  I  discovered  the  next  morn 
ing,  was  named  Buffalo,  as  at  home.  It  differed  in  one 
respect  greatly,  and  that  was  that  it  had  no  courthouse 
square,  and  no  lakes  immediately  adjoining  it;  but  other 
wise  its  general  atmosphere  was  quite  the  same.  It  had  a 
river,  or  small  stream  about  the  size  of  the  Tippecanoe. 
The  similarity  is  not  so  startling  when  one  considers  how 
many  towns  of  thirtyfive  hundred  are  county  seats  in  the 
middle  west,  and  how  limited  their  opportunities  for  dif 
ference  are.  Assemble  four  or  five  hundred  frame  and 
brick  houses  of  slightly  varying  size  and  architecture  and 
roominess,  surround  them  with  trees  and  pleasing  grass 
plots,  provide  the  town  a  main  street  and  one  cross  street 
of  stores,  place  one  or  two  red  brick  school  houses  at 
varying  points  in  them,  add  one  white  sandstone  court 
house  in  a  public  square,  and  a  railroad  station,  and  four 
or  five  or  six  red  brick  churches,  and  there  you  have  them 
all.  Give  one  town  a  lake,  another  a  stream,  another  a 
mill  pond — it  makes  little  difference. 

And  actually,  as  we  dashed  along  toward  Warsaw  un 
der  a  starry  sky,  with  a  warm,  summery  wind  blowing, 
a  wind  so  warm  that  it  felt  suspiciously  like  rain,  I  allowed 
myself  to  sink  into  the  most  commemorative  state.  When 
you  forget  the  now  and  go  back  a  number  of  years  and 
change  yourself  into  a  boy  and  view  old  scenes  and  see 
old  faces,  what  an  unbelievably  strange  and  inexplicable 
thing  life  becomes !  We  attempt  solutions  of  this  thing, 
but  to  me  it  is  the  most  vacuous  of  all  employments.  I 
rather  prefer  to  take  it  as  a  strange,  unbelievable,  impos 
sible  orchestral  blending  of  sounds  and  scenes  and  moods 


REV.  J.  CADDEN  McMICKENS          153 

and  odors  and  sensations,  which  have  no  real  meaning 
and  yet  which,  tinkling  and  kaleidoscopic  as  they  are, 
are  important  for  that  reason.  I  never  ride  this  way  at 
night,  or  when  I  am  tired  by  day  or  night,  but  that  life 
becomes  this  uncanny  blur  of  nothingness. 

Why  should  something  want  to  produce  two  billion 
people  all  alike, — ears,  eyes,  noses,  hands,  unless  for 
mere  sensory  purposes, — to  sensitize  fully  and  voluptu 
ously  something  that  is  delicious?  Why  billions  of  trees, 
flowers,  insects,  animals,  all  seeking  to  feel,  unless  feel 
ing  without  socalled  reason  is  the  point?  Why  reason, 
anyway?  And  to  what  end?  Supposing,  for  instance, 
that  one  could  reason  through  to  the  socalled  solution, 
actually  found  it,  and  then  had  to  live  with  that  bit  of 
exact  knowledge  and  no  more  forever  and  ever  and  ever! 
Give  me,  instead,  sound  and  fury,  signifying  nothing. 
Give  me  the  song  sung  by  an  idiot,  dancing  down  the  wind. 
Give  me  this  gay,  sad,  mad  seeking  and  never  finding 
about  which  we  are  all  so  feverishly  employed.  It  is  so 
perfect,  this  inexplicable  mystery. 

And  it  was  with  some  such  thoughts  as  these  that  I 
was  employed,  sitting  back  in  the  car  and  spinning  along 
over  these  roads  this  night.  I  was  only  half  awake  and 
half  in  a  dreamland  of  my  own  creating.  The  houses 
that  we  passed  with  open  doors,  lamp  on  table,  people 
reading,  girls  playing  at  pianos,  people  sitting  in  door 
steps,  were  in  the  world  of  twentyfive  or  thirty  years  be 
fore,  and  I  was  entering  the  Warsaw  of  my  school  days. 
There  was  no  real  difference.  "What  ideas  have  we 
today  that  we  did  not  have  then?"  I  was  dreamily  asking 
myself.  "How  do  people  differ?  Are  the  houses  any 
better,  or  the  clothes?  Or  the  people  in  their  bodies  and 
minds?  Or  are  their  emotions  any  richer  or  keener  or 
sweeter?"  Euripides  wrote  the  Medea  in  440  B.  C. 
Shakespeare  wrote  "Macbeth"  in  1605  A.  D.  "The 
Song  of  Songs" — how  old  is  that?  Or  the  Iliad?  The 
general  feeling  is  that  we  are  getting  on,  but  I  should  like 
to  know  what  we  can  get  on  to,  actually.  And  beyond 
the  delight  of  sensory  response,  what  is  there  to  get  on 


154  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

/to?  Mechanicalizing  the  world  does  not,  cannot,  it  seems 
to  me,  add  to  the  individual's  capacity  for  sensory  re 
sponse.  Life  has  always  been  vastly  varied.  How,  by 
inventing  things,  can  we  make  it  more  so?  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  life,  not  man,  is  supplying  its  own  inventions  and 
changes,  adding  some,  discarding  others.  To  what  end? 
Today  we  have  the  automobile.  Three  thousand  years 
ago  we  had  the  chariot.  Today  we  fight  with  forty- 
centimeter  guns  and  destructive  gases.  Three  thousand 
years  ago  we  fought  with  catapults  and  burning  pitch  and 
oil.  Man  uses  all  the  forces  he  can  conceive,  and  he 
seems  to  be  able  to  conceive  of  greater  and  greater  forces, 
but  he  does  not  understand  them,  and  his  individual  share 
in  the  race's  sensory  response  to  them  is  apparently  no 
greater  than  ever.  We  are  capable  of  feeling  so  much 
and  no  more.  Has  any  writer,  for  instance,  felt  more 
poignantly  or  more  sweetly  than  those  whose  moods  and 
woes  are  now  the  Iliad?  And  when  Medea  speaks,  can 
anyone  say  it  is  ancient  and  therefore  less  than  we  can 
feel  today?  We  know  that  this  is  not  true. 

I  may  seem  to  grow  dim  in  my  researches,  but  I  can 
conceive  of  no  least  suggestion  of  real  change  in  the 
sensory  capacity  of  life.  As  it  was  in  the  beginning,  so 
it  appears  that  it  is  now — and  shall  I  say,  ever  shall  be? 
I  will  not  venture  that.  I  am  not  all-wise  and  I  do  not 
know. 

When  we  entered  Warsaw  I  had  just  such  thoughts 
in  my  mind,  and  a  feeling  that  I  would  like  very  much 
to  have  something  to  eat.  Since  it  was  early  Sat 
urday  evening,  the  streets  were  crowded  with  country 
vehicles,  many  automobiles,  and  a  larger  percentage  of 
tumble-down  buggies  and  wagons  than  I  had  so  far  seen 
elsewhere.  Why?  The  oldest,  poorest,  most  ratty  and 
rickety  looking  auto  I  had  seen  in  I  don't  know  when 
was  labeled  "For  Hire." 

"Gee  whiz!"  exclaimed  Speed  when  he  caught  sight 
of  it.  And  I  added,  "Who  would  want  to  ride  in  that, 
anyhow?" 


REV.  J.  CADDEN  McMICKENS          155 

Yet,  since  it  was  there,  it  would  seem  as  if  somebody 
might  want  to  do  so. 

However,  at  the  north  end  of  the  principal  street,  and 
close  to  a  small  park,  we  discovered  one  of  the  most  com 
fortable  little  hotels  imaginable.  All  the  rooms  were 
done  in  bright,  cheerful  colors,  and  seemed  to  be  properly 
cared  for.  There  were  baths  and  an  abundance  of  hot 
water  and  towels,  and  electric  lights  and  electric  call 
bells, — rather  novel  features  for  a  country  hotel  of  this 
size.  The  lobby  was  as  smart  and  brisk  as  most  hotels 
of  a  much  more  expensive  character.  We  "spruced  up" 
considerably  at  the  sight  of  it.  Franklin  proceeded  with 
his  toilet  ini  a  most  ambitious  manner,  whereupon  I 
changed  to  a  better  suit.  I  felt  quite  as  though  I  were 
dressing  for  an  adventure  of  some  kind,  though  I  did  not 
think  there  was  the  slightest  likelihood  of  our  finding  one 
in  a  town  of  this  size,  nor  was  I  eager  for  the  prospect. 
A  half  dozen  years  before — perhaps  earlier — I  would 
have  been  most  anxious  to  get  into  conversation  with 
some  girl  and  play  the  gallant  as  best  I  could,  or  roam 
the  dark  in  search  of  adventure,  but  tonight  I  was  in 
terested  in  no  such  thing,  even  if  I  might  have. 

Surely  I  must  be  getting  along  in  years,  I  said  to  my 
self,  to  be  thus  indifferent  to  these  early  enthusiasms. 
Twenty  years  before,  if  anyone  had  told  me  that  I  could 
go  forth  into  a  brisk  Saturday  evening  crowd  such  as 
was  filling  this  one  street,  and,  seeing  the  young  girls 
and  boys  and  women  and  men  going  about,  feel  no  least 
thrill  of  possible  encounters,  I  would  have  said  that  life, 
under  such  circumstances,  would  not  be  worth  living. 
Yet  here  I  was,  and  here  we  were,  and  this  was  exactly 
what  I  was  doing  and  life  seemed  fairly  attractive. 

Out  in  the  buzzing  country  street  we  did  nothing  but 
stroll  about,  buy  picture  postcards,  write  on  and  address 
them,  buy  some  camera  films,  get  our  shoes  shined,  and 
finally  go  for  our  dinner  to  a  commonplace  country 
restaurant.  I  was  interested  in  the  zealous,  cadaverous, 
overambitious  young  man  who  was  the  proprietor,  and 
a  young,  plump  blonde  girl  acting  as  waitress,  who  might 


156  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

have  been  his  wife  or  only  a  hired  girl.  Her  eyes  looked 
swollen  and  as  though  she  had  been  crying  recently.  And 
'he  was  in  a  crotchety,  non-palliative  mood,  taking  our 
orders  in  a  superior,  contemptuous  manner,  and  making 
us  feel  as  though  we  were  of  small  import. 

"What  ails  mine  host,  do  you  suppose?"  I  asked  of 
Franklin. 

"Oh,  he  thinks  that  we  think  we're  something,  I  sup 
pose,  and  he's  going  to  prove  to  us  that  we're  not.  You 
know  how  country  people  are." 

I  watched  him  thereafter,  and  I  actually  think  Frank 
lin's  interpretation  was  correct. 

As  we  ambled  about  afterwards,  Speed  told  us  the  har 
rowing  story  of  the  descent  of  the  Rev.  J.  Cadden  Mc- 
Mickens  on  the  fair  city  of  Kokomo,  Indiana,  some  few 
years  before,  when  he  was  working  there  as  a  test  man 
for  one  of  the  great  automobile  companies.  After  a 
reasonable  period  of  religious  excitement  and  exhorta 
tion,  in  which  the  Rev.  J.  Cadden  conducted  a  series  of 
meetings  in  a  public  hall  hired  for  the  occasion  and  urged 
people  to  reform  and  repent  of  their  sins,  he  suddenly 
announced  that  on  a  given  day  the  end  of  the  world  would 
certainly  take  place  and  that  all  those  not  reformed  or 
"saved"  by  that  date  would  be  damned.  On  the  night 
before  the  fatal  morning  on  which  the  earth  was  to  be 
consumed  by  fire  or  water,  or  both,  Speed  suddenly  awoke 
to  the  fact  that  he  was  not  "saved"  and  that  he  could  not 
get  a  train  out  of  Kokomo  to  Carmel,  Indiana,  where  his 
mother  lived.  To  him  at  that  time  the  world  was  surely 
coming  to  an  end.  Fire,  brimstone,  water,  smoke,  were 
already  in  the  air.  As  he  related  this  story  to  us  I  got 
the  impression  that  his  knees  knocked  under  him.  In 
consequence  of  the  thought  of  never  being  able  to  see 
his  dear  mother  any  more,  or  his  sister  or  brothers,  he 
nearly  succumbed  of  heart  failure.  Afterwards,  finding 
that  the  earth  was  not  destroyed  and  that  he  was  as  safe 
and  sound  as  ever,  he  was  seized  by  a  great  rage  against 
the  aforesaid  Rev.  J.  Cadden  McMickens,  and  went  to 
seek  him  out  in  order  that  he  might  give  him  "a  damned 


REV.  J.  CADDEN  McMICKENS  157 

good  licking,"  as  he  expressed  it,  but  the  Rev.  J.  Cadden, 
having  seen  his  immense  prophecy  come  to  nothing,  had 
already  fled. 

"But,  Speed,"  I  protested,  "how  comes  it  that  you,  a 
sensible  young  fellow,  capable  of  being  a  test  man  for 
a  great  automobile  factory  like  that  of  the  H Com 
pany,  could  be  taken  in  by  such  fol  de  rol?  Didn't  you 
know  that  the  earth  was  not  likely  to  be  consumed  all 
of  a  sudden  by  fire  or  water?  Didn't  you  ever  study 
geology  or  astronomy  or  anything  like  that?" 

"No,  I  never,"  he  replied,  with  the  only  true  and  per 
fect  Hoosier  response  to  such  a  query.  "I  never  had  a 
chance  to  go  to  school  much.  I  had  to  go  to  work  when 
I  was  twelve." 

"Yes,  I  know,  Speed,"  I  replied  sympathetically,  "but 
you  read  the  newspapers  right  along,  don't  you?  They 
rather  show  that  such  things  are  not  likely  to  happen — 
in  a  general  way  they  do." 

"Yes,  I  know,"  he  replied,  "but  I  was  just  a  kid  then. 
That  doggone  skunk!  I'd  just  like  to  have  a  picture  of 
him,  I  would,  frightening  me  like  that." 

"But,  Speed,"  I  said,  "surely  you  didn't  believe  that 
the  earth  was  going  to  be  swallowed  by  fire  that  next 
morning  after  you  were  so  frightened?" 

"Yes,  I  did,  too,"  he  replied.  "He  was  just  agettin' 
out  papers  and  handbills  with  great  big  type,  and  hol- 
lerin'  there  on  the  corner.  It  was  enough  to  scare  any 
body.  Why  wouldn't  I?  Just  the  same,  I  wasn't  the 
only  one.  There  were  hundreds — mostly  everybody  in 
Kokomo.  I  went  over  to  see  an  old  lady  I  knew,  and  she 
said  she  didn't  know  if  it  would  happen  or  not — she 


wasn't  sure." 


"You  poor  kid,"  I  mumbled. 

"Well,  what  did  you  do,  Speed,  when  you  found  you 
couldn't  get  out  of  town?"  inquired  Franklin.  "Why 
didn't  you  walk  out?" 

"Yes,  walk  out,"  replied  Speed  resentfully.  "I  have 
a  picture  of  myself  walking  out,  and  Carmel  forty  miles 


i58  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

away  or  more.  I  wanted  to  be  with  my  mother  when  the 
earth  burned  up." 

uAnd  you  couldn't  make  it  by  morning,"  I  commented. 

"No,  I  couldn't,"  he  replied. 

"Well,  then,  what  did  you  do?"  persisted  Franklin. 

"Well,  I  went  to  see  this  old  lady  where  I  boarded 
once,  and  I  just  stayed  with  her.  We  sat  and  waited  to 
gether." 

At  this  point  I  was  troubled  between  a  desire  to  laugh 
and  to  weep.  This  poor  youth!  And  the  wild-eyed  J. 
Cadden  McMickens !  And  Kokomo !  And  the  hun 
dreds  who  believed!  Can't  you  see  Speed  and  the  old 
lady — the  young  boy  and  the  woman  who  didn't  know 
and  couldn't  be  sure,  and  Kokomo,  and  the  Rev.  J.  Cad- 
den  McMic 

I  feel  as  if  I  would  like  to  get  hold  of  the  Rev.  J. 
Cadden  even  at  this  late  date  and  shake  him  up  a  bit.  I 
won't  say  kick  him,  but 


CHAPTER  XX 

« 

THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  FRA 

NEXT  morning  it  was  raining,  and  to  pass  the  time  be 
fore  breakfast  I  examined  a  large  packet  of  photographs 
which  Speed  had  left  with  me  the  night  before — memen 
toes  of  that  celebrated  pioneer  venture  which  had  for 
its  object  the  laying  out  of  the  new  Lincoln  Highway  from 
New  York  to  San  Francisco.  We  had  already  en  route 
heard  so  much  of  this  trip  that  by  now  we  were  fairly 
familiar  with  it.  It  had  been  organized  by  a  very  wealthy 
manufacturer,  and  he  and  his  very  good  looking  young 
wife  had  been  inclined  to  make  a  friend  of  Speed,  so  that 
he  saw  much  that  would  not  ordinarily  have  fallen  under 
his  vision.  I  was  never  tired  of  hearing  of  this  particular 
female,  whom  I  would  like  to  have  met.  Speed  described 
her  as  small,  plump,  rosy  and  very  determined, — an  iron- 
willed,  spiteful,  jealous  little  creature — in  other  words, 
a  real  woman,  who  had  inherited  more  money  than  her 
husband  had  ever  made.  Whenever  anything  displeased 
her  greatly  she  would  sit  in  the  car  and  weep,  or  even 
yell.  She  refused  to  stay  at  any  hotel  which  did  not 
just  suit  her  and  had  once  in  a  Chicago  hotel  diningroom 
slapped  the  face  of  her  spouse  because  he  dared  to  con 
tradict  her,  and  another  time  in  some  famous  Kansas 
City  hostelry  she  had  thrown  the  bread  at  him.  Both 
were  always  anxious  to  meet  only  the  best  people,  only 
Mr.  Manufacturer  would  insist  upon  including  prize 
fighters  and  auto-speed  record  men,  greatly  to  her  dis 
pleasure. 

I  wish  you  might  have  seen  these  pictures  selected  by 
Speed  to  illustrate  his  trip.  Crossing  a  great  country  like 
America,  from  coast  to  coast,  visiting  new  towns  each 
day  and  going  by  a  route  hitherto  not  much  followed, 

i59 


160  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

one  might  gather  much  interesting  information  and  many 
pictures  (if  no  more  than  postcards)  of  beautiful  and 
striking  things. 

Do  you  imagine  there  were  any  in  this  collection  which 
Speed  left  with  me?  Not  one!  The  views,  if  you  will 
believe  me,  were  all  of  mired  cars  and  rutty  roads  and 
great  valleys  which  might  have  been  attractive  or  impres 
sive  if  they  had  been  properly  photographed.  The  car 
was  always  in  the  foreground,  spoiling  everything.  He 
had  selected  dull  scenes  of  cars  in  procession — the  same 
cars  always  in  the  same  procession,  only  in  different  order, 
and  never  before  any  radically  different  scene. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  as  I  looked  at  these  photographs 
I  could  tell  exactly  how  Speed's  mind  worked,  and  it  was 
about  the  way  the  average  mind  would  work  under  such 
circumstances.  Here  was  a  great  automobile  tour,  in 
cluding  say  forty  or  fifty  cars  or  more.  The  cars  con 
tained  important  men  and  women,  or  were  supposed  to, 
because  the  owners  had  money.  Ergo,  the  cars  and  their 
occupants  were  the  great  things  about  this  trip,  and  wher 
ever  the  cars  were,  there  was  the  interest — never  else 
where.  Hence,  whenever  the  cars  rolled  into  a  town  or 
along  a  great  valley  or  near  a  great  mountain,  let  the 
town  be  never  so  interesting,  or  the  mountain,  or  the 
valley,  the  great  thing  to  photograph  was  the  cars  in  the 
procession.  It  never  seemed  to  occur  to  the  various 
photographers  to  do  anything  different.  Cars,  cars,  cars, 
— here  they  were,  and  always  in  a  row  and  always  the 
same.  I  finally  put  the  whole  bunch  aside  wearily  and 
gave  them  back  to  him,  letting  him  think  that  they  were 
very,  very  remarkable — which  they  were. 

Setting  off  after  breakfast  we  encountered  not  the 
striking  mountain  effects  of  the  region  about  Delaware 
Water  Gap  and  Stroudsburg,  nor  yet  the  fine  valley  views 
along  the  Susquehanna,  but  a  spent  hill  country — the  last 
receding  heaves  and  waves  of  all  that  mountainous  coun 
try  east  of  us.  As  we  climbed  up  and  up  out  of  Warsaw 
onto  a  ridge  which  seemed  to  command  all  the  country 
about  for  miles,  I  thought  of  the  words  of  that  motor- 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  FRA  161 

cyclist  at  Owego  who  said  he  had  come  through  Warsaw 
and  that  you  climbed  five  hills  to  get  in,  but  only  one  to 
get  out,  going  east.  It  was  true.  In  our  westward  course 
the  hills  we  were  to  climb  were  before  us.  You  could  see 
two  or  three  of  them — the  road  ascending  straight  like 
a  ribbon,  ending  suddenly  at  the  top  of  each  one  and 
jumping  as  a  thin  whitish  line  to  the  next  hill  crest 
beyond. 

The  rain  in  which  we  began  our  day  was  already  ceas 
ing,  so  that  only  a  few  miles  out  we  could  put  down  the 
top.  Presently  the  sun  began  to  break  through  fleecy, 
whitish  clouds,  giving  the  whole  world  an  opalescent 
tinge,  and  then  later,  as  we  neared  East  Aurora,  it  be 
came  as  brilliant  as  any  sun  lover  could  wish. 

A  Sabbath  stillness  was  in  the  air.  One  could  actually 
feel  the  early  morning  preparations  for  church.  As  we 
passed  various  farmyards,  the  crowing  of  roosters  and 
the  barking  of  dogs  seemed  especially  loud.  Seeing  a 
hen  cross  the  road  and  only  escape  being  struck  by  the 
car  by  a  hair's  breath,  Franklin  announced  that  he  had 
solved  the  mystery  of  why  hens  invariably  cross  the  road, 
or  seem  to,  in  front  of  any  swift  moving  vehicle. 

"You  don't  mean  to  tell  me  that  it's  because  they  want 
to  get  to  the  other  side,  do  you?"  I  inquired,  thereby 
frustrating  the  possibility  of  the  regulation  Joe  Miller. 

"Actually,  yes,  but  I'm  not  trying  to  put  that  old  one 
over  on  you.  It's  because  they  always  have  the  instinct, 
when  any  dangerous  object  approaches,  to  run  toward 
their  home — their  coop,  which  is  often  just  opposite 
where  they  are  eating.  Now  you  watch  these  chickens 
from  now  on.  They'll  be  picking  peacefully  on  the  side 
of  the  road  opposite  the  farmyard.  Our  car  will  come 
along,  and  instead  of  moving  a  few  feet  farther  away 
from  their  home,  and  so  escaping  altogether,  they  will 
wait  until  the  car  is  near  and  then  suddenly  decide  to 
run  for  home — the  longest  way  out  of  danger.  Lots  of 
times  they'll  start,  as  this  last  one  did,  and  then  find, 
when  they're  nearly  half  way  over,  that  they  can't 


1 62  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

make  it.    Then  they  start  to  run  ahead  of  the  car  and  of 
course  nearly  always  they're  overtaken  and  killed." 

"Well,  that's  an  ingenious  explanation,  anyhow,"  I 
said. 

"They  lose  their  heads  and  then  they  lose  their  heads," 
he  added. 

"Franklin!"  I  exclaimed  reproachfully  and  then  turn 
ing  to  Speed  added:  "Don't  let  that  make  you  nervous, 
Speed.  Be  calm.  We  must  get  him  to  East  Aurora, 
even  though  he  will  do  these  trying  things.  Show  that 
you  are  above  such  difficulties,  Speed.  Never  let  a  mere 
attempt  at  humor,  a  beggarly  jest,  cause  you  to  lose  con 
trol  of  the  car." 

Speed  never  even  smiled. 

Just  here  we  stopped  for  gas  and  oil.  We  were  un 
expectedly  entertained  by  a  store  clerk  who  seemed  par 
ticularly  anxious  to  air  his  beliefs  and  his  art  knowedge. 
He  was  an  interesting  young  man,  very,  with  keen  blue 
eyes,  light  hair,  a  sharp  nose  and  chin — and  decidedly  in 
telligent  and  shrewd. 

"How  far  is  it  to  East  Aurora  from  here?"  inquired 
Franklin. 

"Oh,  about  fifteen  miles,"  answered  the  youth.  "You're 
not  from  around  here,  eh?" 

"No,"  said  Franklin,  without  volunteering  anything 
further. 

"Not  bound  for  Elbert  Hubbard's  place,  are  you?" 

"We  thought  we'd  take  dinner  there,"  replied  Frank 
lin. 

"I  ask  because  usually  a  number  of  people  go  through 
here  of  a  Sunday  looking  for  his  place,  particularly  now 
that  he's  dead.  He's  got  quite  an  institution  over  there, 
I  understand — or  did  have.  They  say  his  hotel  is  very 
good." 

"Haven't  you  ever  been  there?"  I  inquired,  interested. 

"No,  but  I've  heard  a  good  deal  about  it.  It's  a  sort 
of  new  art  place,  as  I  understand  it,  heavy  furniture  and 
big  beams  and  copper  and  brass  things.  He  had  quite 
a  trade,  too.  He  got  into  a  bad  way  with  some  people 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  FRA  163 

over  there  on  account  of  his  divorcing  his  first  wife  and 
taking  up  with  this  second  woman  for  awhile  without  be 
ing  married  to  her.  He  was  a  pretty  shrewd  business 
man,  I  guess,  even  if  he  wore  his  hair  long.  I  saw  him 
once.  He  lectured  around  here — and  everywhere  else, 
I  suppose.  I  think  he  was  a  little  too  radical  for  most 
people  out  this  way." 

He  looked  as  though  he  had  vindicated  his  right  to 
a  seat  among  the  intellectuals. 

I  stared  at  him  curiously.  America  is  so  brisk  and 
well  informed.  Here  was  a  small,  out  of  the  way  place, 
with  no  railroad  and  only  two  or  three  stores,  but  this 
youth  was  plainly  well  informed  on  all  the  current  topics. 
The  few  other  youths  and  maids  whom  we  saw  here 
seemed  equally  brisk.  I  was  surprised  to  note  the  Broad 
way  styles  in  suits  and  dresses — those  little  nuances  of 
the  ready  made  clothes  manufacturers  which  make  one 
feel  as  if  there  were  no  longer  any  country  nor  any  city, 
but  just  smart,  almost  impudent  life,  everywhere.  It  was 
quite  diverting. 

Looking  at  this  fine  country,  dotted  with  red  barns  and 
silos  and  ripe  with  grain,  in  which  already  the  reapers 
were  standing  in  various  places  ready  for  the  morrow's 
work,  I  could  see  how  the  mountains  of  the  east  were 
puffing  out.  This  was  a  spent  mountain  country.  All 
the  real  vigor  of  the  hills  was  farther  east.  These  were 
too  rolling — too  easy  of  ascent  and  descent — long  and 
trying  and  difficult  as  some  of  them  were.  It  seemed  as 
if  we  just  climbed  and  climbed  and  climbed  only  to  de 
scend,  descend,  descend,  and  then  climb,  climb,  climb 
again.  Speed  put  on  the  chains, — his  favorite  employ 
ment  in  hilly  regions. 

But  presently,  after  a  few  more  hills,  which  finally 
gave  way  to  a  level  country,  we  entered  East  Aurora. 

It  is  curious  how  any  fame,  even  meretricious  or  vul 
gar,  is  likely  to  put  one  on  the  qui  vive.  I  had  never 
been  greatly  impressed  with  the  intellect  or  the  taste  of 
Elbert  Hubbard.  He  seemed  too  much  the  quack  savior 
and  patent  nostrum  vender  strayed  into  the  realm  of  art. 


1 64  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

His  face  as  photographed  suggested  the  strolling  Thes 
pian  of  country  "opera  house"  fame.  I  could  never  look 
upon  his  pictures  without  involuntarily  smiling. 

Just  the  same,  once  here,  I  was  anxious  to  see  what 
he  had  achieved.  Many  people  have  I  known  who,  after 
visiting  East  Aurora  and  the  Roycroft  (that  name!) 
Shops,  had  commended  its  sacred  precincts  to  my  atten 
tion.  I  have  known  poets  who  lived  there  and  writers 
to  whom  he  allotted  cottages  within  the  classic  precincts 
of  his  farm  because  of  their  transcendent  merits  in  litera 
ture.  Sic  transit  gloria  mundi!  I  cannot  even  recall 
their  names! 

But  here  we  were,  rolling  up  the  tree  shaded  streets  of 
a  handsome  and  obviously  prosperous  town  of  about 
twentyfive  hundred  which  is  now  one  of  the  residential 
suburbs  of  Buffalo.  Our  eyes  were  alert  for  any  evidence 
of  the  whereabouts  of  the  Roycroft  Inn.  Finally  in  the 
extreme  western  end  of  the  city  we  found  a  Roycroft 
"sign"  in  front  of  a  campus  like  yard  containing  a  build 
ing  which  looked  like  a  small  college  "addition"  of  some 
kind — one  of  those  small  halls  specially  devoted  to  chem 
istry  or  physics  or  literature.  The  whole  place  had  the 
semi-academic  socio-religious  atmosphere  which  is  asso 
ciated  by  many  with  aspiration  and  intellectual  suprem 
acy  and  sweetness  and  light.  Here  on  the  sidewalk  we 
encountered  a  youth  who  seemed  to  typify  the  happy 
acolyte  or  fanner  of  the  sacred  flame.  His  hair  was  a 
little  long,  his  face  and  skin  pale,  quite  waxen,  and  he 
wore  a  loose  shirt  with  a  blowy  tie,  his  sleeves  being 
rolled  up  and  his  negligee  trousers  belted  at  the  waist. 
He  had  an  open  and  amiable  countenance  and  looked  as 
though  life  had  fortunately,  but  with  rare  discrimina 
tion,  revealed  much  to  him. 

"What  is  this?"  I  inquired,  waving  my  hand  at  the 
nearest  building. 

"Oh,  one  of  the  shops,"  he  replied  pleasantly. 

"Is  it  open?" 

"Not  on  Sunday — not  to  the  general  public,  no." 

He  looked  as  though  he  thought  we  might  gain  special 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  FRA  165 

permission  possibly,  if  we  sought  it.  But  instead  we  in 
quired  the  location  of  the  Inn  and  he  accompanied  us 
thither  on  the  running  board  of  our  machine.  It  turned 
out  to  be  a  low,  almost  rectangular  affair  done  in  pea 
green,  with  a  fine  line  of  veranda  displaying  swings, 
rockers,  wicker  chairs  and  deep  benches  where  a  number 
of  passing  visitors  were  already  seated.  It  was  a  brisk, 
summery  and  rather  conventional  hotel  scene. 

Within,  just  off  the  large  lobby  was  a  great  music  or 
reception  hall,  finished  as  I  had  anticipated  in  the  Al- 
bertian  vein  of  taste — a  cross  between  a  farm  home  and 
the  Petit  Trianon.  The  furniture  was  of  a  solid,  log- 
cabin  foundation  but  hopelessly  bastardized  with  oil, 
glaze,  varnish  and  little  metal  gimcracks  in  imitation  of 
wooden  pegs.  A  parqueted  floor  as  slippery  as  glass, 
great  timbers  to  support  the  ceiling  which  was  as  meticu 
lously  finished  as  a  lorgnette,  and  a  six-panel  frieze  of 
Athens,  Rome,  Paris,  London  and  New  York — done  in 
a  semi-impressionistic  vein,  and  without  real  distinction, 
somehow — completed  the  effect.  There  were  a  choice 
array  of  those  peculiar  bindings  for  which  the  Roycroft 
shop  is  noted — limp  leather,  silk  linings  and  wrought- 
bronze  corners  and  clasps,  and  a  number  of  odd  lamps, 
bookracks,  candelabra  and  the  like,  which  were  far  from 
suggesting  that  rude  durability  which  is  the  fine  art  of 
poverty.  One  cannot  take  a  leaf  out  of  St.  Francis  of 
Assisi,  another  out  of  the  Grand  Louis  and  a  third  out 
of  Davy  Crockett  and  combine  them  into  a  new  art.  The 
tETng  was  bizarre,  overloaded,  souffle,  a  kind  of  tawdry 
botch.  Through  it  all  were  tramping  various  American, 
citizens  of  that  hybrid,  commercial-intellectual  variety 
which  always  irritates  me  to  the  swearing  stage.  In  the 
lobby,  the  library,  and  various  halls  was  more  of  the  same 
gimcrackery — Andrew  Jackson  attempting  to  masquerade 
as  Lord  Chesterfield,  and  not  succeeding,  of  course. 
Franklin,  a  very  tolerant  and  considerate  person  when  it 
comes  to  human  idiosyncrasies,  was  at  first  inclined  to 
bestow  a  few  mild  words  of  praise.  "After  all,  it  did 


166  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

help  some  people,  you  know.  It  was  an  advance  in  its 
way." 

After  a  time,  though,  I  noticed  that  his  interest  be 
gan  to  flag.  We  were  scheduled  to  stay  for  dinner,  which 
was  still  three  quarters  of  an  hour  away,  and  had  regis 
tered  ourselves  to  that  effect  at  the  desk.  In  the  mean 
time  the  place  was  filling  up  with  new  arrivals  who  sug 
gested  that  last  word  of  social  investiture  which  the  own 
ership  of  a  factory  may  somehow  imply.  They  would  not 
qualify  exactly  as  "high  brow,"  but  they  did  make  an 
ordinary  working  artist  seem  a  little  de  trop.  As  I 
watched  them  I  kept  thinking  that  here  at  last  I  had  a 
very  clear  illustration  in  the  flesh  of  a  type  that  has  al 
ways  been  excessively  offensive  to  me.  It  is  the  type  which 
everywhere  having  attained  money  by  processes  which  at 
times  are  too  contemptible  or  too  dull  to  mention,  are, 
by  reason  of  the  same  astonishing  dullness  of  mind  or  im 
pulse,  attempting  to  do  the  thing  which  they  think  they 
ought  to  do.  Think  of  how  many  you  personally  know. 
They  have  some  hazy  idea  of  a  social  standard  to  which 
they  are  trying  to  attain  or  "up  to"  which  they  are  trying 
to  live.  Visit  for  example  those  ghastly  gaucheries,  the 
Hotels  Astor  or  Knickerbocker  in  New  York  or  those 
profitable  Bohemian  places  in  Greenwich  village  (how 
speedily  any  decent  rendezvous  is  spoiled  once  the  rumor 
of  it  gets  abroad!)  or  any  other  presumably  smart  or 
different  place  and  you  will  see  for  yourself.  A  hotel 
like  the  Astor  or  the  Knickerbocker  may  be  trying  to  be 
conventionally  smart  as  the  mob  understands  that  sort 
of  thing,  the  Bohemian  places  just  the  reverse.  In  either 
place  or  case  these  visitors  will  be  found  trying  to  live 
up  to  something  which  they  do  not  understand  and  do 
not  really  approve  of  but  which,  nevertheless,  they  feel 
that  they  must  do. 

In  this  East  Aurora  restaurant  the  dinner  hour  was 
one  o'clock.  That  is  the  worst  of  these  places  outside  the 
very  large  cities.  They  have  a  fixed  time  and  a  fixed 
way  for  nearly  everything.  I  never  could  understand 
here  or  anywhere  else  why  a  crowd  should  be  made  to 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  FRA  167 

wait  and  eat  all  at  once.  Where  does  that  silly  old  mass 
rule  come  from  anyhow?  Why  not  let  them  enter  and 
serve  them  as  they  come  ?  The  material  is  there  as  a  rule 
to  serve  and  waiting.  But,  no.  They  have  a  fixed  dinner 
hour  and  neither  love  nor  money  will  induce  them  to 
change  it  or  open  the  doors  one  moment  before  the  hour 
strikes.  Then  there  is  a  rush,  a  pell-mell  struggle !  Think 
of  the  dullness,  the  reducing  shame  of  it,  really.  The 
mere  thought  of  it  sickened  me.  I  tried  to  talk  to  Frank 
lin  about  it.  He,  too,  was  irritated  by  it.  He  said  some 
thing  about  the  average  person  loving  a  little  authority 
and  rejoicing  in  rules  and  following  a  custom  and  being 
unable  to  get  an  old  idea  or  old  ideas  out  their  heads.  It 
was  abominable. 

There  was  the  female  here  with  the  golden-rimmed  eye 
glasses  and  the  stern,  accusing  eye  behind  it.  "Are  you 
or  are  you  not  of  the  best,  artistically  and  socially? 
Answer  yes  or  avaunt."  There  were  tall,  uncomfortable- 
looking  gentlemen  in  cutaway  coats,  and  the  stiffest  of 
stiff  collars,  led  at  chains'  ends  by  stout,  executive  wives 
who  glared  and  stared  and  pawed  things  over.  The 
chains  were  not  visible  to  the  naked  eye,  but  they 
were  there.  Then  there  were  nervous,  fussy,  somewhat 
undersized  gentlemen  with  white  side  whiskers  and  an  air 
of  delicate  and  uncertain  inquiry,  going  timidly  to  and 
fro.  There  were  old  and  young  maids  of  a  severe  liter 
ary  and  artistic  turn.  I  never  saw  better  materials  nor 
poorer  taste  than  in  their  clothes.  I  remarked  to  Frank 
lin  that  there  was  not  one  easy,  natural,  beautiful  woman 
in  the  whole  group,  and  after  scrutinizing  them  all  he 
agreed  with  me. 

"Now,  Franklin/'  I  said,  "this  shows  you  what  the  best 
circles  of  art  and  literature  should  really  be  like.  Once 
you're  truly  successful  and  have  established  a  colony  of 
your  own — East  Franklinia,  let  us  say,  or  Booth-a-rootha 
— they  will  come  and  visit  you  in  this  fashion." 

"Not  if  I  know  it,  they  won't,"  he  replied. 

The  crowd  increased.  Those  who  in  some  institutions 
might  be  known  as  waiters  and  waitresses,  but  who  here 


1 68  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

were  art  directors  and  directoresses  at  the  very  least, 
were  bustling  to  and  fro,  armed  with  all  authority  and 
not  at  all  overawed  by  the  standing  throng  which  had 
now  gathered  outside  the  diningroom  door.  I  never 
saw  a  more  glistening  array  of  fancy  glass,  plates,  cups, 
knives,  forks,  spoons,  flowers.  The  small  black  mission 
tables — Elbert  Hubbardized,  of  course — were  stuffed 
with  this  sort  of  thing  to  the  breaking  point.  The  room 
fairly  sparkled  as  though  the  landlord  had  said,  "I'll 
give  these  people  their  money's  worth  if  it  takes  all  the 
plate  in  the  place.  They  love  show  and  must  have  it."  I 
began  to  feel  a  little  sick  and  nervous.  It  was  all  so 
grand,  and  the  people  about  us  so  plainly  avid  for  it, 
that  I  said,  "Oh,  God,  just  for  a  simple,  plain  board, 
with  an  humble  yellow  plate  in  the  middle.  What  should 
I  be  doing  here,  anyhow?" 

"Well,  Franklin,"  I  said,  as  gaily  as  I  could,  "this  is 
going  to  be  a  very  sumptuous  affair — a  very,  very 
sumptuous  affair." 

He  looked  at  me  wisely,  at  the  crowd,  at  the  long 
curio  case  diningroom,  and  hesitated,  but  something 
seemed  to  be  stirring  within  him. 

"What  do  you  say  to  leaving?"  he  finally  observed. 
"It  seems  to  me" — then  he  stopped.  His  essential  good 
nature  and  charity  would  not  permit  him  to  criticize.  I 
heaved  a  sigh  of  relief,  hungry  as  I  was. 

We  hustled  out.  I  was  so  happy  I  forgot  all  about 
dinner.  There  was  dear  old  Speed,  as  human  as  any 
thing,  sitting  comfortably  in  the  front  seat,  no  coat  on, 
his  feet  amid  the  machinery  for  starting  things,  a  cig 
arette  in  his  mouth,  the  comic  supplement  of  some  Sun 
day  paper  spread  out  before  him,  as  complacent  and 
serene  as  anyone  could  be. 

He  swung  the  car  around  in  a  trice,  and  was  off.  Be 
fore  us  lay  a  long  street,  overhung  with  branches  through 
which  the  sunlight  was  falling  in  lovely  mottled  effects. 
Overhead  was  the  blue  sky.  Outward,  to  right  and  left, 
were  open  fields — the  great,  enduring,  open  fields. 

"It  was  a  bit  too  much,  wasn't  it?"  said  Franklin. 


CHAPTER    XXI 

BUFFALO  OLD  AND  NEW 

WE  had  traveled  now  between  six  and  seven  hundred 
miles,  and  but  for  a  short  half  mile  between  Nicholsen 
and  New  Milford,  Pennsylvania,  we  could  scarcely  say 
that  we  had  seen  any  bad  roads — seriously  impeding  ones. 
To  be  sure,  we  had  sought  only  the  best  ones  in  most 
cases,  not  always,  and  there  were  those  patches  of  state 
road,  cut  up  by  heavy  hauling,  which  we  had  to  skirt; 
but  all  things  considered,  the  roads  so  far  had  been 
wonderful.  From  East  Aurora  into  Buffalo  there  was  a 
solid,  smooth,  red  brick  boulevard,  thirty  feet  wide  and 
twelve  miles  long,  over  which  we  raced  as  though  it 
were  a  bowling  alley.  The  bricks  were  all  vitrified  and 
entirely  new.  I  know  nothing  about  the  durability  of 
such  a  road,  and  this  one  gave  no  evidence  of  its  wearing 
qualities,  but  if  many  such  roads  are  to  be  built,  and 
they  stand  the  wear,  America  will  have  a  road  system  un 
rivaled. 

As  we  were  spinning  along,  the  factories  and  high 
buildings  and  chimneys  of  Buffalo,  coming  into  view 
across  a  flat  space  of  land,  somehow  reminded  me  of 
those  older  hill  cities  of  Europe  which  one  sees  across 
a  space  of  land  from  a  train,  but  which  are  dead,  dead. 
"Here  is  life,"  I  said  to  myself,  "only  here  nothing  has 
happened  as  yet,  historically;  whereas  there,  men  have 
fought  to  and  fro  over  every  inch  of  the  ground."  How 
would  it  be  if  one  could  say  of  Buffalo  that  in  23 1 6  A.  D. 
— four  hundred  years  after  the  writing  of  this — there  was 
a  great  labor  leader  who  having  endured  many  injuries 
was  tired  of  the  exactions  of  the  money  barons  and  se 
curing  a  large  following  of  the  working  people  seized 
the  city  and  administered  it  cooperatively,  until  he  had 

169 


170  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

been  routed  by  some  capitalistic  force  and  hanged  from 
the  highest  building,  his  followers  also  being  put  to 
death?  Or  suppose  a  great  rebellion  had  originated  in 
New  Mexico,  and  it  had  reached  Buffalo  and  Pittsburg 
in  its  onsweep,  and  that  here  an  enormous  battle  had  been 
fought — an  Austerlitz  or  a  Waterloo?  How  we  should 
stare  at  the  towers  as  we  came  across  this  plain!  How 
great  names  would  rise  up  and  flash  across  the  sky !  We 
would  hear  old  war  songs  in  our  ears  and  dream  old  war 
dreams.  Or  suppose  there  were  a  great  cathedral  or  a 
great  museum  crowded  with  the  almost  forgotten  art  of 
the  twentieth,  twentyfirst  and  twentysecond  centuries ! 

I  dream.  Yet  such  are  the  things  which  somehow  make 
a  great  city.  But  lacking  in  historic  charm  as  Buffalo 
might  be,  the  city  had  a  peculiar  interest  for  me,  a  very 
special  one  indeed,  egoist  that  I  am.  For  here,  one 
springtime,  twenty  years  before  this,  I  entered  Buffalo 
looking  for  work.  Fear  not,  I  am  not  going  to  begin 
a  romantic  and  sentimental  account  of  my  youth  and 
early  struggles.  It  was  still  late  March  and  very  chilly. 
There  was  snow  on  the  ground,  but  a  touch  of  Spring 
in  the  air.  I  had  come  on  from  Cleveland,  where  I  had 
failed  to  find  anything  to  do,  and  was  destined  to  go  on 
to  Pittsburg  from  here,  for  I  could  not  make  a  permanent 
connection  with  any  Buffalo  paper.  I  was  a  lonely,  lank, 
impossible  newspaper  type  as  I  see  myself  now,  and  so 
sentimental  and  wistful  that  I  must  have  seemed  a  fool 
to  practical  men.  They  never  troubled  to  pay  me  a 
decent  salary,  I  know  that.  But  instead  of  looking 
briskly  and  earnestly  for  work,  as  you  might  think  a  boy 
with  only  a  few  dollars  in  his  pocket  and  no  friends  any 
where  within  hundreds  of  miles  would  do,  I  spent  my 
time  mooning  over  what  seemed  then  great  streets  and 
over  the  harbor  waters  near  at  hand,  with  their  great 
grain  elevators  and  ships  and  coal  pockets.  Ah,  those 
small  rivers  with  their  boats  and  tugs  and  their  romantic 
suggestion  of  the  sea, — how  I  yearned  over  them! 

At  that  time  I  traveled  by  trolley  to  Niagara,  nearly 
forty  miles  away,  and  looked  at  that  tumbling  flood, 


BUFFALO  OLD  AND  NEW  171 

which  was  then  not  chained  or  drained  by  turbine  water 
power  sluices.  I  was  impressed,  but  somehow  not  quite 
so  much  as  I  thought  I  would  be.  Standing  out  on  a 
rock  near  the  greatest  volume  of  water,  under  a  grey 
sky,  I  got  dizzy  and  felt  as  though  I  were  being  carried 
along,  whether  I  wanted  to  or  not.  Farther  up  stream 
I  stared  at  the  water  as  it  gathered  force  and  speed,  and 
wondered  how  I  should  feel  if  I  were  in  a  small  canoe 
and  were  fighting  it  for  my  life.  Below  the  falls  I  gazed 
up  at  the  splendid  spray  and  wanted  to  shout,  so  vigor 
ously  did  the  water  fall  and  smash  the  rocks  below. 
When  I  returned  to  Buffalo  and  my  room,  I  congratulated 
myself  that  if  I  had  got  nothing  else,  so  far,  out  of  Buf 
falo,  at  least  I  had  gained  this. 

Beyond  having  traveled  from  Warsaw  to  Chicago  and 
thence  to  St.  Louis  and  from  St.  Louis  to  this  same  city, 
via  Toledo,  and  Cleveland,  I  had  never  really  been  any 
where,  and  life  was  all  wonderful.  No  songs  of  Shelley, 
nor  those  strange  wild  lines  of  Euripides  could  outsing 
my  mood  at  this  time.  I  dreamed  and  dreamed  here  in 
this  crude  manufacturing  town,  roaming  about  these 
chilly  streets,  and  now  as  I  look  back  upon  it,  knowing 
that  never  again  can  I  feel  as  I  then  felt,  I  seem  to  know 
that  actually  it  was  as  wonderful  as  I  had  thought  it 
was. 

The  spirit  of  America  at  that  time  was  so  remarkable. 
It  was  just  entering  on  that  vast,  splendid,  most  lawless 
and  most  savage  period  in  which  the  great  financiers,  now 
nearly  all  dead,  were  plotting  and  conniving  the  enslave 
ment  of  the  people  and  belaboring  each  other  for  power. 
Those  crude  and  parvenu  dynasties  which  now  sit  en 
throned  in  our  democracy,  threatening  its  very  life  with 
their  pretensions  and  assumptions,  were  just  in  the  be 
ginning.  John  D.  Rockefeller  was  still  in  Cleveland. 
Flagler,  William  Rockefeller,  H.  H.  Rogers,  were  still 
comparatively  young  and  secret  agents.  Carnegie  was 
still  in  Pittsburg — an  iron  master — and  of  all  his  brood 
of  powerful  children  only  Frick  had  appeared.  William 
H.  Vanderbilt  and  Jay  Gould  had  only  recently  died. 


172  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

Cleveland  was  president  and  Mark  Hanna  was  an  un 
known  business  man  in  Cleveland.  The  great  struggles 
of  the  railroads,  the  coal  companies,  the  gas  companies, 
the  oil  companies,  were  still  in  abeyance,  or  just  begin 
ning.  The  multimillionaire  had  arrived,  it  is  true,  but 
not  the  billionaire.  Giants  were  plotting,  fighting,  dream 
ing  on  every  hand,  and  in  this  city,  as  in  every  other 
American  city  I  then  visited,  there  was  a  singing,  illu- 
sioned  spirit.  Actually,  the  average  American  then  be 
lieved  that  the  possession  of  money  would  certainly  solve 
all  his  earthly  ills.  You  could  see  it  in  the  faces  of  the 
people,  in  their  step  and  manner.  Power,  power,  power, 
— everyone  was  seeking  power  in  the  land  of  the  free  and 
the  home  of  the  brave.  There  was  almost  an  angry  dis 
satisfaction  with  inefficiency,  or  slowness,  or  age,  or  any 
thing  which  did  not  tend  directly  to  the  accumulation  of 
riches.  The  American  world  of  that  day  wanted  you 
to  eat,  sleep  and  dream  money  and  power. 

And  I,  to  whom  my  future  was  still  a  mystery  (would 
that  it  were  so  still!),  was  dreaming  of  love  and  power, 
too,  but  with  no  theory  of  realizing  them  and  with  no 
understanding,  indeed,  of  any  way  in  which  I  could 
achieve  the  happiness  and  pleasures  which  I  desired. 
Knowing  this,  I  was  unhappy.  All  day,  after  a  fifteen 
cent  breakfast  in  some  cheap  restaurant,  or  some  twenty- 
five  cent  dinner  in  another,  I  would  wander  about,  star 
ing  at  these  streets  and  their  crowds,  the  high  buildings, 
the  great  hotels,  uncertain  whether  to  go  on  to  Pitts- 
burg  or  to  hang  on  here  a  little  while  longer  in  the  hope 
of  getting  a  suitable  position  as  a  reporter.  Ah,  I 
thought,  if  I  could  just  be  a  great  newspaper  man,  like 
McCullagh  of  St.  Louis,  or  Dana  of  New  York!  In 
my  pocket  was  a  letter  from  the  proprietor  of  the  St. 
Louis  Republic,  telling  all  and  sundry  what  a  remarkable 
youth  he  had  found  me  to  be,  but  somehow  I  never  felt 
courageous  enough  to  present  it.  It  seemed  so  vain 
glorious  !  Instead,  I  hung  over  the  rails  of  bridges  and 
the  walls  of  water  fronts,  watching  the  gulls,  or  stopped 
before  the  windows  of  shops  and  stores,  and  outside 


BUFFALO  OLD  AND  NEW  173 

great  factories,  and  stared.  At  night  I  would  return  to 
my  gloomy  room  and  sit  and  read,  or  having  eaten  some 
where,  walk  the  streets.  I  haunted  the  newspaper  offices 
at  the  proper  hours,  but  finding  nothing,  finally  departed. 
Buffalo  seemed  a  great  but  hard  and  cold  city.  Spin 
ning  into  it  this  day,  over  long  viaducts  and  through 
regions  of  seemingly  endless  factories  and  cars,  it  still 
seemed  quite  as  vigorous,  only  not  so  hard,  because  my 
circumstances  were  different.  Alas,  I  said  to  myself,  I 
am  no  longer  young,  no  longer  really  poor  in  the  sense 
of  being  uncertain  and  inefficient,  no  longer  so  dreamy 
or  moony  over  a  future  the  details  of  which  I  may  not 
know.  Then  all  was  uncertain,  gay  with  hope  or  dark 
with  fear.  It  might  bring  me  anything  or  nothing.  But 
now,  now — what  can  it  bring  as  wonderful  as  what  I 
thought  it  might  bring?  What  youth,  I  said  to  myself, 
is  now  walking  about  lonely,  wistful,  dreaming  great 
dreams,  and  wishing,  wishing,  wishing?  I  would  be  that 
one  if  I  could.  Yes,  I  would  go  back  for  the  dreams' 
sake, — the  illusion  of  life.  I  would  take  hold  of  life  as 
it  was,  and  sigh  and  yearn  and  dream. 
Or  would  I  go  back  if  I  could? 

We  did  not  stay  so  long  in  Buffalo  this  day,  but 
longer  than  we  would  have  if  we  could  have  discov 
ered  at  once  that  Canada  had  placed  a  heavy  license 
tax  on  all  cars  entering  Canada,  and  that,  because  of 
the  European  War,  I  presume,  we  would  have  to  sub 
mit  to  a  more  thorough  and  tedious  examination  of  our 
luggage  than  ordinarily.  Naturally  there  was  much  ex 
citement,  and  on  all  sides  were  evidences  of  preparations 
being  made  to  send  armaments  and  men  to  the  Mother 
Country.  We  had  looked  forward  with  the  greatest 
pleasure  to  a  trip  into  Canada,  but  the  conditions  were 
so  unfavorable  that  we  hesitated  to  chance  it.  We 
didn't  go.  In  spite  of  our  plans  to  cross  into  Canada 
here  and  come  out  at  Detroit  at  the  west  end  of  Lake 
Erie,  we  listened  to  words  of  wisdom  and  refrained. 
The  automobile  expert  of  the  Statler  assured  us  that 


174  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

we  would  have  a  great  deal  of  trouble.  There  would 
be  an  extra  tax,  delays,  explanations,  and  examination  of 
our  luggage.  A  very  handsome  cigar  clerk  in  this  same 
hotel — what  an  expensive  youth  he  was,  in  a  very  high 
collar,  a  braided  suit,  and  most  roseate  necktie! — told 
us  with  an  air  of  condescension  that  made  me  feel  like 
a  mere  beginner  in  this  automobiling  world:  "It's  noth 
ing  to  do  now.  What  car  have  you?" 

We  told  him. 

"Ah,  no,  you  need  a  big  racer  like  the (nam 
ing  a  car  which  neither  Franklin  nor  I  had  ever  heard 
of) .  Then  you  can  make  it  in  a  day.  There's  nothing 
to  see.  You  don't  wanta  stop." 

He  patronized  us  so  thoroughly  from  the  vantage 
point  of  his  youth  (say  eighteen  years),  and  his  knowl 
edge  of  all  the  makes  of  machines  and  the  roads  about 
Buffalo,  that  I  began  to  feel  that  perhaps  as  a  boy  I 
had  not  lived  at  all.  Such  shoes,  such  a  tie,  such  rings 
and  pins!  Everything  about  him  seemed  to  speak  of 
girls  and  barbers  and  florists  and  garages  and  tailors. 
The  Buffalo  white  light  district  rose  up  before  me,  and 
all  the  giddy-gaudy  whirl  of  local  rathskellers  and  the 
like. 

"What  a  rowdy-dow  boy  it  is,  to  be  sure,"  I  observed 
to  Franklin. 

"Yes,  there  you  have  it,"  he  replied.  "Youth  and  in 
experience  triumphing  over  any  possible  weight  of  knowl 
edge.  What's  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica  compared  to 
that?" 

Our  lunch  at  one  of  the  big  (I  use  the  word  advisedly) 
restaurants,  was  another  experience  in  the  same  way. 
Speed  had  gone  off  somewhere  with  the  car  to  some 
smaller  place  and  Franklin  and  I  ambled  into  the  large 
place.  It  was  as  bad  as  the  Roycroft  Inn  from  the  point 
of  view  of  pretentiousness  and  assumed  perfection,  but 
from  another  it  was  even  worse.  When  we  try  to  be 
luxurious  in  America,  how  luxurious  we  can  really  be ! 
The  heaviness  of  our  panelings  and  decorations !  the 
thickness  of  our  carpets !  the  air  of  solidity  and  vigor  and 


BUFFALO  OLD  AND  NEW  175 

cost  without  very  much  taste!  It  is  Teutonic  without 
that  bizarre  individuality  which  so  often  accompanies 
Teutonic  architecture  and  decoration.  We  are  so  fine, 
and  yet  we  are  not — a  sort  of  raw  uncouthness  showing 
like  shabby  woodwork  from  behind  curtains  of  velvet  and 
cloth  of  gold. 

Sometimes,  you  know,  I  remember  that  we  are  a  mon 
grel  race  and  think  we  may  never  achieve  anything  of 
great  import,  so  great  is  my  dissatisfaction  with  the  shows 
and  vulgar  gaucheries  to  be  seen  on  all  sides.  At  other 
times,  viewing  the  upstanding  middle  class  American 
with  his  vivid  suit,  yellow  shoes,  flaring  tie  and  con 
spicuous  money  roll,  I  want  to  compose  an  ode  in  praise 
of  the  final  enfranchisement  of  the  common  soul.  How 
much  better  these  millions,  I  ask  you,  with  their  derby 
and  fedora  hats,  their  ready  made  suits,  their  flaring 
jewelry,  automobiles  and  a  general  sense  of  well  being, 
and  even  perfection,  if  you  will,  than  a  race  of  slaves 
or  serfs,  dominated  by  grand  dukes,  barons,  beperfumed 
and  beribboned  counts,  daimios  and  lords  and  ladies, 
however  cultivated  and  artistic  these  may  appear!  True, 
the  latter  would  eat  more  gracefully,  but  would  they 
be  any  the  more  desirable  for  that,  actually?  I  hear 
a  thousand  patrician  minded  souls  exclaiming,  "Yes,  of 
course,"  and  I  hear  a  million  lovers  of  democracy  insist 
ing  "No."  Personally,  I  would  take  a  few  giants  in 
every  field,  well  curbed,  and  then  a  great  and  comfortable 
mass  such  as  I  see  about  me  in  these  restaurants,  for 
instance,  well  curbed  also.  Then  I  would  let  them  mix 
and  mingle. 

But,  oh,  these  restaurants ! 

And  how  long  will  it  be  before  we  will  have  just  a  few 
good  ones  in  our  cities? 


CHAPTER  XXII 

ALONG  THE  ERIE  SHORE 

IF  anyone  doubts  that  this  is  fast  becoming  one  of  the 
most  interesting  lands  in  the  world,  let  him  motor  from 
Buffalo  to  Detroit  along  the  shore  of  Lake  Erie,  mile 
after  mile,  over  a  solid,  vitrified  brick  road  fifteen  feet 
wide  at  the  least,  and  approximately  three  hundred  miles 
long.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  vitrified  brick  road  of 
this  description  appears  to  be  seizing  the  imagination  of 
the  middle  west,  and  the  onslaught  of  the  motor  and  its 
owner  is  making  every  town  and  hamlet  desirous  of  shar 
ing  the  wonders  of  a  new  life.  Truly,  I  have  never  seen 
a  finer  road  than  this,  parts  of  which  we  traversed  be 
tween  Buffalo  and  Cleveland  and  between  Cleveland  and 
Sandusky.  There  were  great  gaps  in  it  everywhere, 
where  the  newest  portions  were  in  process  of  completion, 
and  the  horrific  "detour"  sign  was  constantly  in  evidence, 
but  traveling  over  the  finished  sections  of  it  was  some 
thing  like  riding  in  paradise.  Think  of  a  long,  smooth 
red  brick  road  stretching  out  before  you  mile  after  mile, 
the  blue  waters  of  Lake  Erie  to  your  right,  with  its  waves, 
ships  and  gulls ;  a  flat,  Holland-like  farming  land  to  your 
left,  with  occasional  small  white  towns,  factory  centers, 
and  then  field  upon  field  of  hay,  corn,  cabbages,  wheat, 
potatoes — mile  after  mile  and  mile  after  mile. 

Ohio  is  too  flat.  It  hasn't  the  rural  innocence  and  un- 
sophistication  which  Indiana  seems  still  to  retain,  nor  yet 
the  characteristics  of  a  thoroughgoing  manufacturing 
world.  There  are  too  many  factories  and  too  many  trol 
ley  lines,  and  a  somewhat  unsettled  and  uncertain  feeling 
in  the  air,  as  if  the  state  were  undecided  whether  it  would 
be  all  city  and  manufacturing  or  not.  I  hate  that  mid- 
state,  uncertain  feeling,  which  comes  with  a  changing  con- 

176 


ALONG  THE  ERIE  SHORE  177 

dition  anywhere.  It  is  something  like  that  restless  sim 
mering  into  which  water  bursts  before  it  boils.  One 
wishes  that  it  would  either  boil  or  stop  simmering.  This, 
as  nearly  as  I  can  suggest  it,  is  the  way  the  northern 
portion  of  Ohio  that  we  saw  impressed  me. 

And,  unlike  my  feeling  of  fifteen  or  twenty  years  ago, 
I  think  I  am  just  a  little  weary  of  manufacturing  and 
manufacturing  towns,  however  well  I  recognize  and  ap 
plaud  their  necessity.  Some  show  a  sense  of  harmony 
and  joy  in  labor  and  enthusiasm  for  getting  on  and  being 
happy;  but  others,  such  as  Buffalo  and  Cleveland,  seem  to 
have  fallen  into  that  secondary  or  tertiary  state  in  which 
all  the  enthusiasm  of  the  original  workers  and  seekers  has 
passed,  money  and  power  and  privileges  having  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  the  few.  There  is  nothing  for  the 
many  save  a  kind  of  spiritless  drudgery  which  no  one  ap 
preciates  and  which  gives  a  city  a  hard,  unlovely  and 
workaday  air.  I  felt  this  to  be  so,  keenly,  in  the  cases 
of  Buffalo  and  Cleveland,  as  of  Manchester,  Leeds  and 
Liverpool. 

Years  ago  these  American  cities  were  increasing  at 
the  rate  of  from  ten  to  fifty  thousand  a  year.  Then  there 
was  more  of  hope  and  enthusiasm  about  them  than  there 
is  now,  more  of  happy  anticipation.  It  is  true  that  they 
are  still  growing  and  that  there  is  enthusiasm,  but  neither 
the  growth  nor  the  enthusiasm  is  of  the  same  quality.  As 
a  nation,  although  we  are  only  twentyfive  to  thirty  years 
older  in  point  of  time,  we  are  centuries  older  in  view 
point.  We  have  experienced  so  much  in  these  past  few 
years.  We  have  endured  so  much.  That  brood  of  giants 
that  rose  and  wrought  and  fell  between  1870  and  1910 
— children  of  the  dragon's  teeth,  all  of  them — wrought 
shackles  in  the  night  and  bound  us  hand  and  foot.  They 
have  seized  nearly  all  our  national  privileges,  they  have 
bedeviled  the  law  and  the  courts  and  the  national  and 
state  seats  of  legislation,  they  have  laid  a  heavy  hand 
upon  our  highways  and  all  our  means  of  communication, 
poisoned  our  food  and  suborned  our  colleges  and  news 
papers;  yet  in  spite  of  them,  so  young  and  strong  are 


i78  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

we,  we  have  been  going  on,  limping  a  little,  but  still  ad 
vancing.  Giants  who  spring  from  dragon's  teeth  are  our 
expensive  luxury.  In  the  high  councils  of  nature  there 
must  be  some  need  for  them,  else  they  never  would  have 
appeared.  But  I  am  convinced  that  these  western  cities 
have  no  longer  that  younger,  singing  mood  they  once  had. 
We  are  soberer  as  a  nation.  Not  every  man  can  hope 
to  be  president,  as  we  once  fancied, — nor  a  millionaire. 
We  are  nearer  the  European  standard  of  quiet,  disillu 
sioned  effort,  without  so  many  great  dreams  to  stir  us. 

Departing  from  Buffalo,  not  stopping  to  revisit  the 
Falls  or  those  immense  turbine  generators  or  indeed  any 
other  thing  thereabout,  we  encountered  some  men  who 
knew  Speed  and  who  were  starting  a  new  automobile 
factory.  They  wanted  him  to  come  and  work  for  them, 
so  well  known  was  he  as  a  test  man  and  expert  driver. 
Then  we  came  to  a  grimy  section  of  factories  on  a  canal 
or  pond,  so  black  and  rancidly  stale  that  it  interested  us. 
Factory  sections  have  this  in  common  with  other  purely 
individual  and  utilitarian  things, — they  can  be  interest 
ing  beyond  any  intention  of  those  who  plan  them.  This 
canal  or  pond  was  so  slimy  or  oily,  or  both,  that  it  con 
stantly  emitted  bubbles  of  gas  which  gave  the  neighbor 
hood  an  acrid  odor.  The  chimneys  and  roofs  of  these 
warehouses  rose  in  such  an  unusual  way  and  composed 
so  well  that  Franklin  decided  he  should  like  to  sketch 
them.  So  here  we  sat,  he  on  the  walking  beam  of  a 
great  shovel  derrick  lowered  to  near  the  ground,  behind 
two  tug  boats  anchored  on  the  shore,  while  I  made  my 
self  comfortable  on  a  pile  of  white  gravel,  some  of  which 
I  threw  into  the  water.  I  spent  my  time  speculating  as 
to  what  sort  of  people  occupied  the  small  drab  houses 
which  faced  this  picturesque  prospect.  I  imagined  a  poet 
as  great  as  Walt  Whitman  being  able  to  live  and  take 
an  interest  in  this  grimy  beauty,  with  thieves  and  pick 
pockets  and  prostitutes  of  a  low  order  for  neighbors. 

A  few  blocks  farther  on  there  came  into  view  an 
enormous  grain  elevator,  standing  up  like  a  huge  Egyp 
tian  temple  in  a  flat  plain.  This  elevator  was  composed 


EGYPT    AT    BUFFALO 
A  Grain  Elevator 


ALONG  THE  ERIE  SHORE  179 

of  a  bundle  of  concrete  tubes  or  stand  pipes,  capable  of 
being  separately  filled  or  emptied,  thus  facilitating  the 
loading  and  unloading  of  cars  and  allowing  the  separate 
storage  of  different  lots  of  grain.  Before  it,  as  before 
the  great  bridge  at  Nicholsen,  we  paused,  awestruck  by 
its  size  and  design,  something  colossal  and  ancient  sug 
gested  by  its  lines. 

Then  we  sped  out  among  small  yellow  or  drab  work- 
ingmen's  cottages,  their  yards  treeless  for  the  most  part, 
their  walls  smoky. 

Lone  women  were  hanging  over  gates  and  working- 
men  plodding  heavily  about  with  pipes  in  their  mouths, 
and  squeaky  shoes  and  clothes  too  loose  covering  their 
bodies.  Every  now  and  then  a  church  appeared — one 
of  those  noble  institutions  which  represent  to  these  poor 
clowns  heaven,  pearly  gates  and  jasper  streets.  Great 
iron  bridges  came  into  view,  or  some  small  river  or  inlet 
crowded  with  great  ships.  Then  came  the  lake  shore, 
lit  by  a  sinking  and  glorious  afternoon  sun,  and  a  long 
stretch  of  that  wonderful  brick  road,  with  enormous 
steel  plants  on  either  hand,  thousands  of  automobiles, 
and  lines  of  foreign  looking  workingmen  going  in  and 
out  of  cottages  straggling  in  conventional  order  across 
distant  fields.  Out  over  the  water  was  an  occasional 
white  sail  or  a  gull,  or  many  gulls.  Oh,  gulls,  gulls, 
I  thought,  take  me  into  your  free,  wild  world  when 
I  die! 

Just  outside  Buffalo,  on  a  spit  of  land  between  this 
wonderful  brick  road  and  the  lake,  we  came  to  the  Tacka- 
wanna  Steel  Company,  its  scores  of  tall,  black  stacks 
belching  clouds  of  smoke  and  its  immense  steel  pillar 
supported  sheds  showing  the  fires  of  the  forges  below. 
The  great  war  had  evidently  brought  prosperity  to  this 
concern,  as  to  others.  Thousands  of  men  were  evidently 
working  here,  Sunday  though  it  was,  for  the  several 
gates  were  crowded  by  foreign  types  of  women  carrying 
baskets  and  buckets,  and  the  road  and  the  one  trolley 
line  which  ran  along  here  for  a  distance  were  crowded 
with  grimy  workers,  mostly  of  fine  physical  build.  I  nat- 


180  :A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

urally  thought  of  all  the  shells  and  machine  guns  and 
cannon  they  might  be  making,  and  somehow  it  brought 
the  great  war  a  little  nearer.  Personally,  I  felt  at  the 
time  that  the  war  was  likely  to  eventuate  in  favor  of  the 
Germans  because  they  were  better  prepared. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  my  mood  was  not  belligerent  and 
not  pro-moral  or  pro-anything.  I  am  too  doubtful  of 
life  and  its  tendencies  to  enthuse  over  theories.  With 
nations,  as  with  individuals,  the  strongest  or  most  desired 
win,  and  in  the  crisis  which  was  then  the  Germans  seemed 
to  me  the  strongest.  I  merely  hoped  that  America  might 
keep  out  of  it,  in  order  that  she  might  attain  sufficient 
strength  and  judgment  to  battle  for  her  own  ideals  in 
the  future.  For  battle  she  must,  never  doubt  it,  and  that 
from  city  to  city  and  state  to  state.  If  she  survives  the 
ultimate  maelstrom,  with  her  romantic  ideals  of  faith 
and  love  and  truth,  it  will  be  a  miracle. 

This  matter  of  manufacture  and  enormous  industries 
is  always  a  fascinating  thing  to  me,  and  careening  along 
this  lake  shore  at  breakneck  speed,  I  could  not  help  mar 
veling  at  it.  It  seems  to  point  so  clearly  to  a  lordship 
in  life,  a  hierarchy  of  powers,  against  which  the  common 
man  is  always  struggling,  but  which  he  never  quite  over 
comes,  anywhere.  The  world  is  always  palavering  about 
the  brotherhood  of  man  and  the  freedom  and  independ 
ence  of  the  individual;  yet  when  you  go  through  a  city 
like  Buffalo  or  Cleveland  and  see  all  its  energy  practically 
devoted  to  great  factories  and  corporations  and  their  in 
terests,  and  when  you  see  the  common  man,  of  whom 
there  is  so  much  talk  as  to  his  interests  and  superiority, 
living  in  cottages  or  long  streets  of  flats  without  a  vestige 
of  charm  or  beauty,  his  labor  fixed  in  price  and  his  ideas 
circumscribed  in  part  (else  he  would  never  be  content 
with  so  meager  and  grimy  a  world),  you  can  scarcely 
believe  in  the  equality  or  even  the  brotherhood  of  man, 
however  much  you  may  believe  in  the  sympathy  or  good 
intentions  of  some  people. 

These  regions  around  Buffalo  were  most  suggestive  of 
the  great  division  that  has  arisen  between  the  common 


ALONG  THE  ERIE  SHORE  181 

man  and  the  man  of  executive  ability  and  ideas  here  in 
America, — a  division  as  old  and  as  deep  as  life  itself.  I 
have  no  least  complaint  against  the  common  man  toiling 
for  anybody  with  ideas  and  superior  brains — who  could 
have? — if  it  were  not  for  the  fact  that  the  superior  man 
inevitably  seeks  to  arrange  a  dynasty  of  his  blood,  that 
his  children  and  his  children's  children  need  never  to 
turn  a  hand,  whereas  it  is  he  only  who  is  deserving,  and 
not  his  children.  Wealth  tends  to  aristocracy,  and  your 
strong  man  comes  almost  inevitably  to  the  conclusion 
that  not  only  he  but  all  that  relates  to  him  is  of  superior 
fiber.  This  may  be  and  sometimes  is  true,  no  doubt,  but 
not  always,  and  it  is  the  exception  which  causes  all  the 
trouble.  The  ordinary  mortal  should  not  be  compelled 
to  moil  and  delve  for  a  fool.  I  refuse  to  think  that  it 
is  either  necessary  or  inevitable  that  I,  or  any  other  man, 
should  work  for  a  few  dollars  a  day,  skimping  and  long 
ing,  while  another,  a  dunce,  who  never  did  anything  but 
come  into  the  world  as  the  heir  of  a  strong  man,  should 
take  the  heavy  profits  of  my  work  and  stuff  them  into 
his  pockets.  It  has  always  been  so,  I'll  admit,  and  it 
seems  that  there  is  an  actual  tendency  in  nature  to  con 
tinue  it;  but  I  would  just  as  lief  contend  with  nature  on 
this  subject,  if  possible,  as  any  other.  We  are  not  sure 
that  nature  inevitably  wills  it  at  that.  Kings  have  been 
slain  and  parasitic  dynasties  trampled  into  the  earth. 
Why  not  here  and  now? 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE  APPROACH  TO  ERIE 

BEYOND  the  Tackawanna  Steel  Works  there  was  a  lake 
beach  with  thousands  of  people  bathing  and  sausage  and 
lemonade  venders  hawking  their  wares  (I  couldn't  re 
sist  buying  one  "hot  dog")  ;  and  after  that  a  long  line, 
miles  it  seemed  to  me,  of  sumptuous  country  places  fac 
ing  the  lake,  their  roofs  and  gables  showing  through  the 
trees;  then  the  lake  proper  with  not  much  interruption 
of  view  for  a  while;  and  then  a  detour,  and  then  a  flat, 
open  country  road,  oiled  until  it  was  black,  and  then  a 
white  macadam  road.  Now  that  we  were  out  of  the  hill 
and  mountain  country,  I  was  missing  those  splendid  rises 
and  falls  of  earth  which  had  so  diverted  me  for  days; 
but  one  cannot  have  hill  country  everywhere,  and  so  as 
we  sped  along  we  endeavored  to  make  the  best  of  what 
was  to  be  seen.  These  small  white  and  grey  wooden 
towns,  with  their  white  wooden  churches  and  Sabbath 
ambling  citizens,  began  to  interest  me.  What  a  life,  I 
said  to  myself,  and  what  beliefs  these  people  entertain! 
One  could  discern  their  creeds  by  the  number  of  wooden 
and  brick  churches  and  the  sense  of  a  Sabbath  stillness 
and  propriety  investing  everything.  At  dusk,  tiny  church 
bells  began  to  ring,  church  doors,  revealing  lighted  in 
teriors,  stood  open,  and  the  people  began  to  come  forth 
from  their  homes  and  enter.  I  have  no  deadly  opposi 
tion  to  religion.  The  weak  and  troubled  mind  must  have 
something  on  which  to  rest.  It  is  only  when  in  the  form 
of  priestcraft  and  ministerial  conniving  it  becomes  puffed 
up  and  arrogant  and  decides  that  all  the  world  must 
think  as  it  thinks,  and  do  as  it  does,  and  that  if  one  does 
not  one  is  a  heretic  and  an  outcast,  that  I  resent  it. 

The  effrontery  of  these  theorists  anyhow,  with  their 

182 


THE  APPROACH  TO  ERIE  183 

sacraments  and  their  catechisms !  Think  of  that  mad  dog 
Torquemada  bestriding  Spain  like  a  Colossus,  driving 
out  eight  hundred  thousand  innocent  Jews,  burning  at  the 
stake  two  thousand  innocent  doubters,  stirring  up  all  the 
ignorant  animal  prejudice  of  the  masses,  and  leaving 
Spain  the  bleak  and  hungry  land  it  is  today!  Think  of 
it! — a  priest,  a  theorist,  a  damned  speculator  in  monastic 
abstrusities,  being  able  to  do  anything  like  that!  And 
then  the  Inquisition  as  a  whole,  the  burning  of  poor  John 
Huss,  the  sale  of  indulgences  and  the  driving  out  of 
Luther.  Beware  of  the  enthusiastic  religionist  and  his 
priestly  servitors  and  leaders!  Let  not  the  theorist  be 
come  too  secure !  Think  of  those  who,  in  the  name  of  a 
mystic  unproven  God,  would  seize  on  all  your  liberties 
and  privileges,  and  put  them  in  leash  to  a  wild-eyed  exor 
cist  romancer  of  the  type  of  Peter  the  Hermit,  for  in 
stance.  Do  not  Asia  and  Africa  show  almost  daily  the 
insane  uprising  of  some  crack-brained  Messiah  ?  Beware ! 
Look  with  suspicion  upon  all  Billy  Sundays  and  their  ilk 
generally.  Let  not  the  uplifter  and  the  reformer  become 
too  bold.  They  inflame  the  ignorant  passions  of  the  mob, 
who  never  think  and  never  will.  Already  America  is  be 
ing  too  freely  tramped  over  by  liquor  reformers,  maga 
zine  and  book  and  picture  censors,  dreamers  and  cranks 
and  lunatics  who  think  that  mob  judgment  is  better  than 
individual  judgment,  that  the  welfare  of  the  ignorant 
mass  should  guide  and  regulate  the  spiritual  inspiration 
of  the  individual.  Think  of  one  million,  or  one  billion, 
factory  hands,  led  by  priests  and  preachers,  able  to  dic 
tate  to  a  Spencer  whether  or  not  he  should  compile  a 
synthetic  philosophy — or  to  a  Synge,  whether  he  should 
write  a  "Play  Boy  of  the  Western  World,"  or  to  a  Vol 
taire,  whether  he  should  publish  a  "Candide." 

Out  on  them  for  a  swinish  mass !  Shut  up  the  churches, 
knock  down  the  steeples!  Harry  them  until  they  know 
the  true  place  of  religion, — a  weak  man's  shield!  Let 
us  have  no  more  balderdash  concerning  the  duty  of  man 
to  respect  any  theory.  He  can  if  he  chooses.  That  is 


1 84  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

his  business.    But  when  he  seeks  to  dictate  to  his  neighbor 
what  he  shall  think,  then  it  is  a  different  matter. 

As  I  rode  through  this  region  this  evening,  I  could 
not  help  feeling  and  seeing  still  operating  here  all  the 
conditions  which  years  ago  I  put  safely  behind  me.  Here 
were  the  people  who  still  believed  that  God  gave  the  Ten 
Commandments  to  Moses  on  Sinai  and  that  Joshua  made 
the  sun  to  stand  still  in  Avalon.  They  would  hound  you 
out  of  their  midst  for  lack  of  faith  in  beliefs  which  other 
where  are  silly  children's  tales, — or  their  leaders  would. 

About  seven  o'clock,  or  a  little  later,  we  reached  the 
town  of  Fredonia,  still  in  New  York  State  but  near  its 
extreme  western  boundary.  We  came  very  near  attend 
ing  church  here,  Franklin  and  I,  because  a  church  door 
on  the  square  stood  open  and  the  congregation  were 
singing.  Instead,  after  strolling  about  for  a  time,  we 
compromised  on  a  washup  in  a  charming  oldfashioned 
white,  square,  colonnaded  hotel  facing  the  park.  We  went 
to  the  only  restaurant,  the  hotel  diningroom  being  closed, 
and  after  that,  while  Speed  took  on  a  supply  of  gas  and 
oil,  we  jested  with  an  old  Scotchman  who  had  struck  up 
a  friendship  with  Speed  and  was  telling  him  the  history 
of  his  youth  in  Edinburgh,  and  how  and  why  he  wanted 
America  to  keep  out  of  the  war.  He,  too,  had  a  me 
chanical  laugh,  like  that  odd  creature  in  the  square  at 
Bath,  a  kind  of  wild  jackalesque  grimace,  which  was 
kindly  and  cheerfully  meant,  however.  Finally  he  grew 
so  gay,  having  someone  to  talk  to,  that  he  executed  a 
Jack-knife-ish  automaton  dance  which  amused  me  greatly. 
When  Speed  was  ready  we  were  off  again,  passing  ham 
let  a-fter  hamlet  and  town  after  town,  and  entering  Penn 
sylvania  again  a  few  miles  west  (that  small  bit  which 
cuts  northward  between  Ohio  and  New  York  at  Erie  and 
interferes  with  the  natural  continuation  of  New  York) . 

The  night  was  so  fine  and  the  wind  so  refreshing  that 
I  went  off  into  dreamland  again,  not  into  actual  sleeping 
dreams,  but  into  something  that  was  neither  sleeping  nor 
waking.  These  states  that  I  achieved  in  this  way  were 


THE  APPROACH  TO  ERIE  185 

so  peculiar  that  I  found  myself  dwelling  on  them  after 
ward.  They  were  like  the  effects  of  a  drug.  In  the 
trees  that  we  passed  I  could  see  strange  forms,  all  the 
more  weird  for  the  moonlight,  which  was  very  weak  as 
yet, — grotesque  hags  and  demons  whose  hair  and  beards 
were  leaves  and  whose  bony  structures  were  branches. 
They  quite  moved  me,  as  in  childhood.  And  on  the  road 
we  saw  strolling  lovers  occasionally,  arm  in  arm,  some 
times  clasped  in  each  other's  arms,  kissing,  couples  whom 
the  flare  of  our  headlights  illumined  with  a  cruel  realism. 

A  town  called  Brocton  was  passed,  a  fire  arch  over 
its  principal  street  corner  bidding  all  and  sundry  to  stop 
and  consider  the  joys  of  Brocton.  A  town  called  Pom- 
fret,  sweet  as  trees  and  snug  little  houses  could  make  it, 
had  an  hotel  facing  a  principal  corner,  which  caused  us 
to  pause  and  debate  whether  we  would  go  on,  it  was  so 
homelike.  But  having  set  our  hearts,  or  our  duty,  on 
Erie,  we  felt  it  to  be  a  weakness  thus  to  pause  and  debate. 

On  and  on,  through  Westfield,  Ripley,  Northeast, 
Harbor  Creek.  It  was  growing  late.  At  one  of  these 
towns  we  saw  a  most  charming  small  hotel,  snuggled  in 
trees,  with  rocking  chairs  on  a  veranda  in  front  and  a 
light  in  the  office  which  suggested  a  kind  of  expectancy 
of  the  stranger.  It  was  after  midnight  now  and  I  was 
so  sleepy  that  the  thought  of  a  bed  was  like  that  of 
heaven  to  a  good  Christian.  The  most  colorful,  the  most 
soothing  sensations  were  playing  over  my  body  and  in 
my  brain.  I  was  in  that  halcyon  state  where  these  things 
were  either  real  or  not,  just  as  you  chose — so  intoxicat 
ing  or  soothing  is  fresh  air.  Sometimes  I  was  here,  some 
times  in  Warsaw  or  Sullivan  or  Evansville,  Indiana, 
thirty  years  before,  sometimes  back  in  New  York.  Occa 
sionally  a  jolt  had  brought  me  to,  but  I  was  soon  back 
again  in  this  twilight  land  where  all  was  so  lovely  and 
where  I  wanted  to  remain. 

uWhy  should  we  go  on  into  Erie?"  I  sighed,  once  we 
were  aroused.  "It'll  be  hot  and  stuffy." 

Franklin  got  down  and  rang  a  bell,  but  no  one  an 
swered.  It  was  nearing  one  o'clock.  Finally  he  came 


1 86  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

back  and  said,  "Well,  I  can't  seem  to  rout  anybody  out 
over  there.  Do  you  want  to  try?" 

Warm  and  sleepy,  I  climbed  down. 

On  the  porch  outside  were  a  number  of  comfortable 
chairs.  In  the  small,  clean  office  was  a  light  and  more 
chairs.  It  looked  like  an  ideal  abiding  place. 

I  rang  and  rang  and  rang.  The  fact  that  I  had  been 
so  drowsy  made  me  irritable,  and  the  fact  that  I  could 
hear  the  bell  tinkling  and  sputtering,  but  no  voice  reply 
ing  and  no  step,  irritated  me  all  the  more.  Then  I  kicked 
for  a  while  and  then  I  tried  beating. 

Not  a  sound  in  response. 

"This  is  one  swell  hotel,"  I  groaned  irritably,  and 
Speed,  lighting  a  cigarette,  added, 

"Well,  I'd  like  to  have  a  picture  of  that  hotel  keeper. 
He  must  be  a  sight,  his  nose  up,  his  mouth  open." 

Still  no  answer.  Finally,  in  despair,  I  went  out  in  the 
middle  of  the  road  and  surveyed  the  hotel.  It  was  most 
attractive  in  the  moonlight,  but  absolutely  dead  to  the 
world. 

"The  blank,  blank,  blank,  blank,  blank,  blank,  blank," 
I  called,  resuscitating  all  my  best  and  fiercest  oaths.  "To 
think  that  a  blank,  blank,  blank,  blank,  blank  could  sleep 
that  way  anyhow.  Here  we  are,  trying  to  bring  him  a 
little  business,  and  off  he  goes  to  bed,  or  she.  Blank, 
blank,  blank,  the  blank,  blank,  blanked  old  place  any 
how,"  and  back  I  went  and  got  into  the  car. 

"Say,"  called  Speed,  derisively,  "ain't  he  a  bird? 
Whaddy  y'know.  He's  a  great  hotel  keeper." 

"Oh,  well,"  I  said  hopelessly,  and  Franklin  added, 
"We're  sure  to  get  a  good  bed  in  Erie." 

So  on  we  went,  tearing  along  the  road,  eager  to  get 
anywhere,  it  was  so  late. 

But  if  we  had  known  what  was  in  store  for  us  we 
would  have  returned  to  that  small  hotel,  I  think,  and 
broken  in  its  door,  for  a  few  miles  farther  on,  an  arrow, 
pointing  northward,  read,  "Erie  Main  Road  Closed." 
Then  we  recalled  that  there  had  been  a  great  storm  a 
few  days  or  weeks  before  and  that  houses  had  been 


PQ 

"a; 
W     « 


O    52 

fc    e 

w    g 


THE  APPROACH  TO  ERIE  187 

washed  out  by  a  freshet  and  a  number  of  people  had  been 
killed.  The  road  grew  very  bad.  It  was  a  dirt  road,  a 
kind  of  marshy,  oily,  mucky  looking  thing,  cut  into  deep 
ruts.  After  a  short  distance  under  darksome  trees,  it 
turned  into  a  wide,  marshy  looking  area,  with  a  number 
of  railroad  tracks  crossing  it  from  east  to  west  and 
numerous  freight  trains  and  switch  engines  jangling  to 
and  fro  in  the  dark.  A  considerable  distance  off  to  the 
north,  over  a  seeming  waste  of  marshy  land,  was  an 
immense  fire  sign  which  read,  "Edison  General  Electric 
Company,  Erie.'7  Overhead,  in  a  fine  midnight  trans- 
lucence,  hung  the  stars,  innumerable  and  clear,  and  I 
was  content  to  lie  back  for  a  while,  jolting  as  we  were, 
and  look  at  them. 

"Well,  there's  Erie,  anyhow,"  I  commented.  "We 
can't  lose  that  fire  sign." 

"Yes,  but  look  what's  ahead  of  us,"  sighed  Speed. 

As  it  developed,  that  fire  sign  had  nothing  to  do  with 
Erie  proper  but  was  stuck  off  on  some  windy  beach  or 
marsh,  no  doubt,  miles  from  the  city.  To  the  west  of 
it,  a  considerable  distance,  was  a  faint  glow  in  the  sky, 
a  light  that  looked  like  anything  save  the  reflection  of  a 
city,  but  so  it  was.  And  this  road  grew  worse  and  worse. 
The  car  lurched  so  at  times  that  I  thought  we  might  be 
thrown  out.  Speed  was  constantly  stopping  it  and  ex 
amining  the  nature  of  certain  ruts  and  pools  farther  on. 
He  would  stop  and  climb  down  and  walk  say  four  or  five 
hundred  feet  and  then  come  back,  and  bump  on  a  little 
further.  Finally,  having  gone  a  considerable  distance  on 
this  course,  we  seemed  to  be  mired.  We  would  dash 
into  a  muddy  slough  and  there  the  wheels  would  just  spin 
without  making  any  progress.  The  way  out  of  this  was 
to  trample  earth  behind  the  wheels  and  then  back  up. 
I  began  to  think  we  were  good  for  a  night  in  the  open. 
Franklin  and  I  walked  back  blocks  and  blocks  to  see 
whether  by  chance  we  hadn't  gotten  on  the  wrong  roacr. 
Having  decided  that  we  were  doing  as  well  as  could  be 
expected  under  the  circumstances,  we  returned  and  sat 
in  the  car.  After  much  time  wasted  we  struck  a  better 


1 88  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

portion  of  the  road,  coming  to  where  it  turned  at  right 
angles  over  the  maze  of  unguarded  tracks  which  we  had 
been  paralleling  all  this  while.  It  was  a  treacherous 
place,  with  neither  gates  nor  watchmen,  but  just  a  great 
welter  of  dark  tracks  with  freight  cars  standing  here 
and  there,  signal  lights  glimmering  in  the  distance,  and 
engines  and  trains  switching  up  and  down. 

"Shall  we  risk  it?"  asked  Speed  cautiously. 

aSure,  we'll  have  to,"  replied  Franklin.  "It's  danger 
ous  but  it's  the  only  way." 

We  raced  over  it  at  breakneck  speed  and  into  more 
unfriendly  marshy  country  beyond.  We  reached  a  street, 
a  far-out  one,  but  nevertheless  a  street,  without  a  house 
on  it  and  only  a  few  gas  lamps  flickering  in  the  warm 
night  air.  In  a  region  of  small  wooden  cottages,  so 
small  as  to  be  pathetic,  we  suddenly  encountered  one 
of  those  mounted  police  for  which  Pennsylvania  is  fa 
mous,  sitting  by  the  curbing  of  a  street  corner,  his  gun 
in  his  hand  and  a  saddle  horse  standing  near. 

"Which  way  into  Erie?"  we  called. 

"Straight  on." 

"Is  this  where  the  storm  was?"  we  asked. 

"Where  the  washout  was,"  he  replied. 

We  could  see  where  houses  had  been  torn  down  or 
broken  into  or  flung  askew  by  some  turbulent  element 
much  superior  to  these  little  shells  in  which  people  dwelt. 

Through  brightly  lighted  but  apparently  deserted 
streets  we  sped  on,  and  finally  found  a  public  square  with 
which  Speed  was  familiar.  He  had  been  here  before. 
We  hurried  up  to  an  hotel,  which  was  largely  darkened 
for  the  night.  Out  of  the  door,  just  as  we  arrived,  were 
coming  two  girls  in  frills  and  flounces,  so  conspicuously 
arrayed  that  they  looked  as  though  they  must  have  been 
attending  an  affair  of  some  kind.  An  hotel  attendant  was 
showing  them  to  a  taxi.  Franklin  went  in  to  arrange  for 
three  adjoining  rooms  if  possible,  and  as  I  followed  I 
heard  one  attendant  say  to  another, — they  had  both  been 
showing  the  girls  out — "Can  you  beat  it?  Say,  they  make 
theirs  easy." 


THE  APPROACH  TO  ERIE  189 

I  wondered.     The  hotel  was  quite  dark  inside. 

In  a  few  minutes  we  had  adjusted  our  accommodations 
and  were  in  our  rooms,  I  in  one  with  a  tall  window  look 
ing  out  into  a  spacious  court.  The  bed  was  large  and 
soft.  I  fairly  fell  out  of  my  clothes  and  sank  into  it,  just 
having  sense  enough  to  turn  out  the  light.  In  a  minute  I 
fancy  I  was  sound  asleep,  for  the  next  thing  I  was  con 
scious  of  was  three  maids  gossiping  outside  my  door. 

"Blank,  blank,  blank,"  I  began.  "Am  I  not  going  to  be 
allowed  to  get  any  sleep  tonight?" 

To  my  astonishment,  I  discovered  the  window  behind 
the  curtains  was  blazing  with  light. 

I  looked  at  my  watch.  It  was  nine  o'clock.  And  we 
had  turned  in  at  three  thirty. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE  WRECKAGE  OF  A  STORM 

THE  next  day  was  another  of  travel  in  a  hot  sun  over 
a  country  that  in  part  lacked  charm,  in  other  parts  was 
idyllically  beautiful.  We  should  have  reached  Sandusky 
and  even  the  Indiana  line  by  night,  if  we  had  been  travel 
ing  as  we  expected.  But  to  begin  with,  we  made  a  late 
start,  did  not  get  out  of  Erie  until  noon,  and  that  for  vari 
ous  reasons, — a  late  rising,  a  very  good  breakfast  and 
therefore  a  long  one,  a  shave,  a  search  for  picture  cards 
and  what  not.  Our  examination  of  the  wreck  made  by 
the  great  storm  and  flood  was  extended,  and  having  been 
up  late  the  night  before  we  were  in  a  lazy  mood  anyhow. 

Erie  proved  exceedingly  interesting  to  me  because  of 
two  things.  One  of  these  was  this:  that  the  effects  of 
the  reported  storm  or  flood  were  much  more  startling 
than  I  had  supposed.  The  night  before  we  had  entered 
by  some  streets  which  apparently  skirted  the  afflicted  dis 
trict,  but  today  we  saw  it  in  all  its  casual  naturalness,  and 
it  struck  me  as  something  well  worth  seeing.  Blocks  upon 
blocks  of  houses  washed  away,  upset,  piled  in  heaps,  the 
debris  including  machinery,  lumber,  household  goods, 
wagons  and  carts.  Through  one  wall  front  torn  away  I 
saw  a  mass  of  sewing  machines  dumped  in  a  heap.  It 
had  been  an  agency.  In  another  there  was  a  mass  of 
wool  in  bags  stacked  up,  all  muddied  by  the  water  but 
otherwise  intact.  Grocery  stores,  butcher  shops,  a  candy 
store,  a  drug  store,  factories  and  homes  of  all  kinds 
had  been  broken  into  by  the  water  or  knocked  down  by 
the  cataclysmic  onslaught  of  water  and  nearly  shaken 
to  pieces.  Ceilings  were  down,  plaster  stripped  from  the 
walls,  bricks  stacked  in  great  heaps, — a  sorry  sight. 
We  learned  that  thirtyfive  people  had  been  killed  and 
many  others  injured. 

190 


THE  WRECKAGE  OF  A  STORM         191 

Another  was  that,  aside  from  this  Greek-like  tragedy, 
it  looked  like  the  native  town  of  Jennie  Gerhardt,  my 
pet  heroine,  though  I  wrote  that  she  was  born  in  Colum 
bus,  a  place  I  have  never  visited  in  my  life. 

[That  reminds  me  that  a  Columbus  book  reviewer  once 
remarked  that  it  was  easy  to  identify  the  various  places 
mentioned  in  Columbus,  that  the  study  was  so  accurate!] 
But  never  having  seen  Columbus,  and  having  another 
small  city  in  mind,  it  chanced  now  that  Erie  answered  the 
description  exactly.  These  long,  narrow,  small  housed, 
tree-shaded  streets  (in  many  instances  saplings)  dom 
inated  at  intervals  by  large  churches  or  factories, — this 
indubitably  was  the  world  in  which  Jennie  originally 
moved,  breathed,  and  had  her  being.  I  was  fascinated 
when  I  arose  in  the  morning,  to  find  that  this  hotel  was 
one  such  as  the  pretentious  Senator  Brander  might  have 
chosen  to  live  in,  and  the  polished  brasses  of  whose  hand 
rails  and  stairsteps  a  woman  of  Mrs.  Gerhardt' s  limited 
capabilities  would  have  been  employed  to  polish  or  scrub. 
Even  the  great  plate-glass  windows  lined  within  and  with 
out  by  comfortable  chairs  commanding,  as  they  did, 
the  principal  public  square  or  park  and  all  the  fascinating 
forces  of  so  vigorous  and  young  a  town,  were  such  as 
would  naturally  be  occupied  by  the  bloods  and  sports  of 
the  village,  the  traveling  salesmen,  and  the  idling  big 
wigs  of  political  and  other  realms.  It  was  an  excellent 
hotel,  none  better;  as  clean,  comfortable  and  tasteful  as 
one  would  wish  in  this  workaday  world;  and  past  its  win 
dows  when  I  first  came  down  looking  for  a  morning 
paper,  were  tripping  a  few  shop  girls  and  belated  workers 
carrying  lunch  boxes. 

"Jennie's  world  to  the  life,"  I  thought.  "Poor  little 
girl." 

But  the  seventyfive  thousand  people  here — how  did 
they  manage  to  pass  their  lives  without  the  manifold 
opportunities  and  diversions  which  fill,  or  can,  at  least, 
the  minds  of  the  citizens  of  Paris,  Rome,  London,  Chi 
cago,  New  York?  Here  were  all  these  thousands,  work 
ing  and  dreaming  perhaps,  but  how  did  they  fill  their 


i92  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

lives?  I  pictured  them  as  dressing  at  breakfast  time, 
going  to  work  each  morning,  and  then  after  a  day  at 
machines  or  in  stores,  with  lunches  on  counter  or  work 
bench,  returning  at  night,  a  fair  proportion  of  them  at 
any  rate,  to  the  very  little  houses  we  had  seen  coming  in; 
and  after  reading  those  impossible,  helter-skelter,  hig 
gledy-piggledy,  hodge-podges  of  rumor,  false  witness, 
romance,  malice,  evil  glamour  and  what  not — the  evening 
newspapers — retiring  to  their  virtuous  couches,  socalled, 
to  rise  again  the  next  day. 

I  am  under  no  illusions  as  to  these  towns,  and  I  hold 
no  highflown  notions  as  to  our  splendid  citizenry,  and 
yet  I  am  intensely  sympathetic  with  them.  I  have  had 
too  much  evidence  in  my  time  of  how  they  do  and  feel. 
I  always  wonder  how  it  is  that  people  who  entertain 
such  highflown  ideas  of  how  people  are  and  what  they 
think  and  say — in  writing,  theorizing,  editorializing — 
manage  to  hold  such  practical  and  even  fierce  relations 
with  life  itself.  Every  one  of  those  simple  American 
towns  through  which  we  had  been  passing  had  its  red 
light  district.  Every  one  had  its  quota  of  saloons  and 
dives,  as  well  as  churches  and  honorable  homes.  Who 
keeps  the  vulgar,  shabby,  gross,  immoral,  inartistic  end 
of  things  going,  if  we  are  all  so  splendid  and  worthy  as 
so  many  current,  top-lofty  theorizers  would  have  us  be 
lieve?  Here  in  this  little  city  of  Erie,  as  in  every  other 
peaceful  American  hamlet,  you  would  find  the  more  ani 
mal  and  vigorous  among  them  turning  to  those  same  red 
streets  and  dives  we  have  been  speaking  of,  while  the 
paler,  more  storm-beaten,  less  animal  or  vigorous,  more 
life-harried,  take  to  the  darksome  doors  of  the  church. 
Necessity  drives  the  vast  majority  of  them  along  paths 
which  they  fain  would  not  travel,  and  the  factories  and 
stores  in  which  they  work  eat  up  a  vitality  which  other 
wise  might  show  itself  in  wild  and  unpleasant  ways. 

Here,  as  I  have  said,  in  these  plain,  uninteresting 
streets  was  more  evidence  of  that  stern  destiny  and  in- 
considerateness  of  the  gods  which  the  Greeks  so  well 
understood  and  with  such  majesty  noted,  and  which  al- 


THE  WRECKAGE  OF  A  STORM         193 

ways  causes  me  to  wonder  how  religion  manages  to  sur 
vive  in  any  form.  For  here,  several  weeks  before,  was 
this  simple,  virtuous  town  (if  we  are  to  believe  the  moral 
istic  tosh  which  runs  through  all  our  American  papers), 
sitting  down  after  its  dinner  and  a  hard  day's  work  to 
read  the  evening  paper.  It  was  deserving  not  only  of 
the  encomiums  of  men,  but  of  gods,  presumably.  And 
then,  the  gods  presiding  over  and  regulating  all  things  in 
the  interest  of  man,  a  rainstorm  comes  up  and  swells  a 
small  creek  or  rivulet  running  through  the  heart  of  the 
town  and  under  small  bridges,  culverts  and  even  houses — 
so  small  is  it — into  a  kind  of  foaming  torrent.  All  is  go 
ing  well  so  far.  The  culverts  and  bridges  and  stream  beds 
are  large  enough  to  permit  the  water  to  be  carried  away. 
Only  a  few  roofs  are  blown  off,  a  few  churches  struck  by 
lightning,  one  or  two  people  killed  in  an  ordinary,  elec 
tric  storm  way. 

Enters  then  the  element  of  human  error.  This  is 
always  the  great  point  with  all  moralists.  Once  the 
crimes  or  mistakes  or  indifferences  of  the  ruling  powers 
could  be  frankly  and  squarely  placed  on  the  shoulders  of 
the  devil.  No  one  could  explain  how  a  devil  who  could 
commit  so  much  error  came  to  live  and  reign  in  the  same 
universe  with  an  omnipotent  God,  but  even  so.  The 
devil,  however,  having  become  a  mythical  and  threadbare 
scapegoat,  it  finally  became  necessary  to  invent  some  new 
palliative  of  omnipotent  action,  and  so  human  error  came 
into  being  as  a  whipping  dummy — man's  troubles  are 
due  to  his  own  mistaken  tendencies,  though  there  is  a 
God  who  creates  and  can  guide  him  and  who  does  punish 
him  for  doing  the  things  which  he  ought  to  know  better 
than  to  do. 

Selah !  So  be  it.  But  here  in  Erie  is  this  honest  or 
reprehensible  community,  as  you  will,  and  here  is  the 
extra  severe  thunder  and  rain  storm, — a  cloudburst,  no 
less.  The  small  brook  or  rivulet  swells  and  swells.  Peo 
ple  notice  it,  perhaps,  looking  out  of  their  doors  and 
windows,  but  it  seems  to  be  doing  well  enough.  Then, 
unknown  to  the  great  majority  of  them,  a  barn  a  num- 


i94  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

her  of  blocks  out,  a  poor,  humanly  erroneous  barn,  is 
washed  away  against  a  fair-sized  culvert,  blocking  it 
completely. 

The  gully  beyond  the  culvert,  upstream,  is  very  large 
and  it  fills  and  fills  with  water.  Because  of  its  some 
what  widening  character  a  small  lake  forms, — a  heavy 
body  of  water  pressing  every  moment  more  and  more 
heavily  against  the  culvert.  When  the  former  has 
swollen  to  a  great  size  this  latter  gives  way.  There  is 
a  downward  rush  of  water — a  small  mountain  of  water, 
no  less.  Bridges,  culverts,  houses  built  over  the  brook, 
houses  for  two  blocks  on  either  hand,  are  suddenly 
pressed  against  or  even  partially  filled  by  water.  Citizens 
reading  their  evening  newspapers,  or  playing  the  ac- 
cordeon  or  the  victrola  or  cards  or  checkers  or  what  you 
will,  feel  their  houses  begin  to  move.  Chimneys  and 
plaster  fall.  Houses  collapse  completely.  In  one  house 
eight  are  instantly  killed, — a  judgment  of  God,  no  doubt, 
on  their  particular  kind  of  wickedness.  In  another  house 
three,  in  another  house  four;  death  being  apportioned, 
no  doubt,  according  to  the  quality  of  their  crimes. 
Altogether,  thirtyfive  die,  many  are  injured,  and  scores 
upon  scores  of  houses,  covering  an  area  of  twentysix 
blocks  in  length,  are  moved,  upset,  floated  blocks  from 
their  normal  position,  or  shaken  to  pieces  or  consumed 
by  fire. 

The  fire  department  is  called  out  and  the  Pennsylvania 
mounted  police.  The  moving  picture  camera  men  come 
and  turn  an  honest  penny.  Picture  postcard  dealers  who 
make  money  out  of  cards  at  a  cent  apiece  photograph 
all  the  horrors.  The  newspapers  get  out  extras,  thereby 
profiting  a  few  dollars,  and  all  Erie,  and  even  all  America 
is  interested,  entertained,  emotionalized.  Even  we,  com 
ing  several  weeks  later  and  seeing  only  carpenters,  ma 
sons,  and  plumbers  at  work,  where  houses  are  lying  about 
in  ruins,  are  intensely  concerned.  We  ride  about  exam 
ining  all  the  debris  and  getting  a  fine  wonder  out  of  it, 
until  we  are  ordered  back,  at  one  place,  by  a  thick-witted 
mounted  policeman  whose  horse  has  taken  fright  at  our 


THE  WRECKAGE  OF  A  STORM         195 

machine;  a  thing  which  a  mounted  policeman's  horse 
should  never  do,  and  which  makes  a  sort  of  fool  of  him 
and  so  irritates  him  greatly. 

"Get  out  of  here!"  he  shouted  angrily  at  one  street 
corner,  glaring  at  us,  "sticking  your  damn  noses  into 
everything!" 

"What  the  hell  ails  you  anyhow?"  I  replied,  equally 
irritable,  for  we  had  just  been  directed  by  another  mounted 
policeman  whose  horse  had  not  been  frightened  by  us,  to 
come  down  in  here  and  see  some  real  tragedy — "The 
policeman  at  the  last  corner  told  us  to  come  in  here." 

"Well,  you  can't  come  in.  Get  out!"  and  he  flicked 
his  boot  with  his  hand  in  a  contemptuous  way. 

"Ah,  go  to  hell,"  I  replied  angrily,  but  we  had  to  move 
just  the  same.  The  law  in  boots  and  a  wide  rimmed  hat, 
a  la  Silver  City,  was  before  us. 

We  got  out,  cursing  the  mounted  policeman,  for  who 
wants  to  argue  with  a  long,  lean,  thin-faced,  sallow  Penn- 
sylvanian  armed  with  a  great  sixteen  shot  revolver?  God 
has  never  been  just  to  me.  He  has  never  made  me  a 
mounted  policeman.  As  we  cruised  about  in  Franklin's 
car,  looking  at  all  the  debris  and  ruin,  I  speculated  on 
this  problem  in  ethics  and  morals  or  theism  or  what  you 
will:  Why  didn't  God  stop  this  flood  if  he  loved  these 
people?  Or  is  there  no  God  or  force  or  intelligence  to 
think  about  them  at  all?  Why  are  we  here,  anyhow? 
Were  there  any  unjust,  or  only  just  among  them?  Why 
select  Erie  when  He  might  have  assailed  Pittsburg  or 
Broadway  and  Fortysecond  Street,  New  York,  or  Phila 
delphia?  Think  of  what  a  splendid  evidence  of  judgment 
that  last  would  have  been,  or  Brooklyn !  Oh,  God,  why 
not  Brooklyn?  Why  eight  people  in  one  house  and  only 
one  in  another  and  none  in  many  others?  Do  I  seem 
much  too  ribald,  dear  reader?  Were  the  people  them 
selves  responsible  for  not  building  good  barns  or  culverts 
or  anticipating  freshets?  Will  it  come  about  after  a 
while  that  every  single  man  will  think  of  the  welfare  of 
all  other  men  before  he  does  anything,  and  so  build  and 
so  do  that  no  other  man  will  be  injured  by  any  action  of 


196  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

his?  And  will  every  man  have  the  brains  (given  by  God) 
so  to  do — or  will  God  prevent  freshets  and  washouts 
and  barns  being  swept  against  weak  culverts? 

I  am  an  honest  inquirer.  I  was  asking  myself  these 
very  questions,  wondering  over  the  justice  or  injustice  of 
life.  Do  you  think  there  is  any  such  thing  as  justice,  or 
will  you  agree  with  Euripides,  as  I  invariably  feel  that 
I  must? 

"Great  treasure  halls  hath  Zeus  in  heaven, 
From  whence  to  man  strange  dooms  are  given 

Past  hope  or  fear. 

And  the  end  looked  for  cometh  not, 
And  a  path  is  there  where  no  man  thought. 

So  hath  it  fallen  here." 


CHAPTER  XXV 

CONNEAUT 

MORE  splendid  lake  road  beyond  Erie,  though  we 
were  constantly  running  into  detours  which  took  us  through 
sections  dreadful  to  contemplate.  The  next  place  of  any 
importance  was  the  city  of  Conneaut,  Ohio,  which  re 
vealed  one  form  of  mechanical  advance  I  had  never 
dreamed  existed.  Conneaut  being  ''contagious/'  as  Phil 
osopher  Dooley  used  to  say,  to  the  coal  fields  of  Pennsyl 
vania — hard  and  soft — and  incidentally  (by  water)  to 
the  iron  and  copper  mines  "up  Superior  way"  in  north 
ern  Michigan,  a  kind  of  transshipping  business  has  sprung 
up,  the  coal  from  these  mines  being  brought  here  and 
loaded  onto  boats  for  all  points  on  the  Great  Lakes. 
Similarly  copper  and  iron  coming  down  from  upper 
Michigan  and  Wisconsin  on  boats  are  here  taken  out  and 
loaded  into  cars.  I  never  knew  before  that  iron  ore  was 
powdered  for  shipment — it  looks  just  like  a  dull  red 
earth — or  that  they  stored  it  in  great  hills  pending  a  day 
of  use, — hills  which  looked  to  me  as  though  a  thousand 
ships  might  not  lower  them  in  a  year.  John  D.  Rock 
efeller,  I  am  told,  was  the  guiding  spirit  in  all  this  devel 
opment  here,  having  first  seen  the  profit  and  convenience 
of  bringing  ore  from  the  mines  in  northern  Michigan 
south  by  water  to  the  mills  of  Pennsylvania  and  inciden 
tally  returning  in  the  same  carriers  coal  to  all  parts  of  the 
Great  Lakes  and  elsewhere.  A  canny  man,  that.  Won't 
some  American  Homer  kindly  sing  of  him  as  one  of  the 
great  wonders  of  the  world? 

Optically  and  for  a  material  thrill,  the  machinery  for 
transshipping  these  enormous  supplies  was  most  interest 
ing  to  me. 

Suppose  you  were  able  to  take  an  iron  car  weighing 

197 


198  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

say  thirty  or  forty  thousand  pounds,  load  it  with  coal 
weighing  thirty  or  forty  thousand  pounds  more,  and  turn 
it  up,  quite  as  you  would  a  coal  scuttle,  and  empty  the 
contents  into  a  waiting  ship.  .  .  .  Then  suppose  you 
looked  in  the  car  and  saw  three  or  four  pieces  of  coal 
still  lying  in  it  and  said  to  yourself,  "Oh,  well,  I  might 
as  well  dump  these  in,  too/'  and  then  you  lifted  up  the 
car  and  dumped  the  remaining  two  or  three  pieces  out — 
wouldn't  you  feel  rather  strong? 

Well,  that  is  what  is  being  done  at  Conneaut,  Ohio, 
morning,  noon  and  night,  and  often  all  night,  as  all  day. 
The  boats  bringing  these  immense  loads  of  iron  ore 
are  waiting  to  take  back  coal,  and  so  this  enormous  proc 
ess  of  loading  and  unloading  goes  on  continually.  Frank 
lin  and  I  were  standing  on  a  high  bank  commanding  all 
this  and  a  wonderful  view  of  Lake  Erie,  never  dreaming 
that  the  little  box-like  things  we  saw  in  the  distance  being 
elevated  and  turned  over  were  steel  coal  cars,  when  he 
suddenly  exclaimed,  "I  do  believe  those  things  over  there 
are  cars,  Dreiser, — steel  coal  cars." 

"Get  out !"  I  replied  incredulously. 

"That's  what  they  are,"  he  insisted.  "We'll  have 
Speed  run  the  machine  over  onto  that  other  hill,  and  then 
we  can  be  sure." 

From  this  second  vantage  point  it  was  all  very  clear — 
great  cars  being  run  upon  a  platform,  elevated  quickly 
to  a  given  position  over  a  runway  or  coal  chute  leading 
down  into  the  hold  of  a  waiting  steamer,  and  then  quickly 
and  completely  upset;  the  last  few  coals  being  shaken 
out  as  though  each  grain  were  precious. 

"How  long  do  you  think  it  takes  them  to  fill  a  ship  like 
that?"  I  queried. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  replied  Franklin  meditatively. 

"Let's  see  how  long  it  takes  to  empty  a  car." 

We  timed  them — one  car  every  three  minutes. 

"That  means  twenty  cars  an  hour,"  I  figured,  "or  one 
hundred  cars  in  five  hours.  That  ought  to  fill  any 


steamer." 


A  little  farther  along  this  same  shore,  reaching  out 


CONNEAUT  199 

toward  the  lake,  where  eventually  was  a  small,  white 
lighthouse,  were  those  same  hills  of  red  powdered  iron 
I  have  been  telling  you  about — great  long  hills  that  it 
must  have  taken  ships  and  ships  and  ships  of  iron  to 
build.  I  thought  of  the  ownership  of  all  those  things, 
the  iron  and  copper  mines  in  northern  Michigan,  the  vast 
coal  beds  in  Pennsylvania  and  elsewhere,  and  how  they 
were  acquired.  Did  you  ever  read  a  true  history  of 
them?  I'll  wager  you  haven't.  Well,  there  is  one,  not 
so  detached  as  it  might  be,  a  little  propagandistic  in  tone 
in  spots,  but  for  all  that  a  true  and  effective  work.  It  is 
entitled  "A  History  of  the  Great  American  Fortunes," 
by  one  Gustavus  Myers,  a  curious  soul,  and  ill  repaid,  as 
I  have  reason  to  know,  for  his  untiring  energy.  It  is 
really  a  most  important  work,  and  can  be  had  in  three 
compact  volumes  for  about  six  dollars.  It  is  almost  too 
good  to  be  true,  a  thorough  going,  forthright  statement 
of  the  whole  process.  Some  of  his  expositions  make  clear 
the  almost  hopeless  nature  of  democracy, — and  that  is  a 
very  important  thing  to  discover. 

As  I  have  said,  this  northern  portion  of  Ohio  is  a  mix 
ture  of  half  city  and  half  country,  and  this  little  city  of 
Conneaut  was  an  interesting  illustration  of  the  rural 
American  grappling  with  the  metropolitan  idea.  In  one 
imposing  drug  or  candy  store  (the  two  are  almost  syn 
onymous  these  days)  to  which  Franklin  and  I  went  for 
a  drink  of  soda,  we  met  a  striking  example  of  the  rural 
fixity  of  idea,  or  perhaps  better,  religiosity  of  mind  or 
prejudice,  in  regard  to  certain  normal  human  appetites 
or  vices.  In  most  of  these  small  towns  and  cities  in  Ohio 
these  days,  total  abstinence  from  all  intoxicating  liquors 
is  enforced  by  local  option.  In  Conneaut  local  option  had 
decided  that  no  intoxicating  liquor  of  any  kind  should 
be  sold  there.  But  since  human  nature  is  as  it  is  and  must 
have  some  small  outlet  for  its  human  naturalness,  appa 
rently  they  now  get  what  are  sometimes  called  near- 
drinks,  which  are  sold  under  such  enticing  names  as 
"Sparkade"  (which  is  nothing  more  than  a  carbonated 
cider  or  apple  juice),  "Gayola,"  "Cheercoala,"  and  a 


200  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

score  of  other, — all  dosed,  no  doubt,  with  a  trace  of  some 
temporarily  bracing  drug,  like  caffeine  or  kolanut.  The 
one  which  I  tried  on  this  occasion  was  "Sparkade,"  a 
feeble,  watery  thing,  which  was  advertised  to  have  all 
the  invigorating  qualities  of  champagne  and  to  taste  the 
same. 

"Has  this  any  real  champagne  in  it?"  I  asked  the 
conventional  but  rosy  cheeked  girl  who  waited  on  me, 
jestingly.  ^ 

"No,  sir.  I  don't  think  so,  sir.  IVe  never  tried  it, 
though." 

"What?"  I  said,  "Never  tried  this  wonderful  drink? 
Have  you  ever  tasted  champagne?" 

"Indeed,  not!"  she  replied,  with  a  concerned  and  self- 
preservative  air. 

"What,  never?  Well,  then,  there's  your  chance.  I'm 
going  to  drink  a  bottle  of  Sparkade  and  you  can  taste 


mine." 


I  poured  out  the  bubbling  stuff  and  offered  it  to  her. 

"No,  thank  you,"  she  replied  haughtily,  and  as  I  still 
held  it  toward  her,  "No,  thank  you!  I  never  touch  any 
thing  of  that  kind." 

"But  you  say  it  is  a  nonintoxicant?" 

"Well,  I  think  it  is,  but  I'm  not  sure.  And  anyhow,  I 
don't  think  I'd  care  for  it." 

"Don't  you  belong  to  some  society  that  is  opposed  to 
intoxicants  of  all  kinds?"  I  queried  teasingly. 

"Yes,  sir.  Our  church  is  opposed  to  liquor  in  any 
form." 

"Even  Sparkade?"  I  persisted. 

She  made  a  contemptuous  mouth. 

"There  you  have  it,  Franklin,"  I  said  to  him.  "You 
see — the  Church  rules  here — a  moral  opinion.  That's 
the  way  to  bring  up  the  rising  generation — above  cor 
ruption." 

But  outside  Conneaut  was  so  delightful.  There  was 
such  a  downpour  of  sunlight  upon  great,  wide  armed  trees 
and  mottling  the  sidewalks  and  roadways.  In  the  local 
garage  where  we  stopped  for  oil  and  some  tools  all  was 


2  B 
as  S 


O    H 

CJ 


CONNEAUT  201 

so  orderly  and  clean — a  veritable  cosmos  of  mechanical 
intricacies  which  set  me  to  meditating  on  the  vast  array 
of  specialties  into  which  the  human  mind  may  delve  and 
make  a  living.  Citizens  were  drifting  about  in  an  easy, 
summery  way  it  seemed  to  me, — not  with  that  hard 
pressure  which  seems  to  afflict  the  members  of  many  larger 
cities.  I  felt  so  comfortable  here,  so  much  like  idling. 
And  Franklin  and  Speed  seemed  in  the  same  mood. 

Query.  Was  it  the  noon  hour?  or  the  gay,  delicious 
sunlight  seen  through  trees?  or  some  inherent,  spiritual 
quality  in  Conneaut  itself?  Query. 

Beyond  Conneaut  we  scuttled  over  more  of  that  won 
derful  road,  always  in  sight  of  the  lake  and  so  fine  that 
when  completed  it  will  be  the  peer  of  any  scenic  route 
in  the  world,  I  fancy.  Though  as  yet  but  earth,  it  was 
fast  being  made  into  brick.  And  positively  I  may  assure 
you  that  you  need  never  believe  people  you  meet  on  the 
road  and  of  whom  you  seek  information  as  to  shortest 
routes,  places  to  eat,  condition  of  road  or  the  best  roads. 
No  traveling  motorist  seems  to  know,  and  no  local  resi 
dent  or  wiseacre  anywhere  is  to  be  trusted.  People  tell 
you  all  sorts  of  things  and  without  the  slightest  positive 
information.  Franklin  told  me  that  out  in  his  home  town, 
Carmel,  he  had  discovered  that  the  wise  loafers  who 
hang  about  the  post  office  and  public  stores,  and  had 
lived  in  Hamilton  County  all  their  lives,  had  been  for 
years  uniformly  misdirecting  passing  automobilists  as  to 
the  best  or  shortest  route  between  Carmel  and  Nobels- 
ville,  Indiana.  In  some  cases  it  might  be  done,  he  thought, 
in  a  spirit  of  deviltry,  in  others  prejudice  as  to  routes  was 
responsible,  in  still  others  nothing  more  than  blank  igno 
rance  as  to  what  constitutes  good  roads ! 

Here  in  Conneaut,  as  we  were  entering  the  city  by 
"the  largest  viaduct  in  the  world,"  we  asked  an  old  toll 
keeper,  who  collected  thirty  cents  from  us  as  a  token  of 
his  esteem,  which  was  the  shortest  and  best  road  to  Ash- 
tabula  and  whether  there  wasn't  a  good  shore  road. 

"Well,  now,  I'll  tell  you,"  he  began,  striking  a  position 


202  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

and  beginning  to  smooth  his  abundant  whiskers.  "There 
is  a  shore  road  that  runs  along  the  lake,  but  it  hain't  no 
good.  If  you're  a-goin'  fer  business  you'll  take  the  Ridge 
Road,  but  if  you're  just  out  joy  ridin'  and  don't  care 
where  you  go,  you  can  go  by  the  lake.  The  Ridge  Road's 
the  business  man's  road.  There  hain't  no  good  road  along 
the  lake  at  this  time  o'  year,  with  all  the  rain  we've  been 
havin.'  " 

Franklin,  I  am  sure,  was  inclined  to  heed  his  advice  at 
first,  whereas  I,  having  listened  to  similar  bits  of  misin 
formation  all  the  way  out  from  New  York,  was  inclined 
to  be  skeptical  and  even  angry,  and  besides  the  car  wasn't 
mine.  These  wretched  old  fixtures,  I  said  to  myself,  who 
had  never  been  in  an  automobile  more  than  a  half  dozen 
times  in  their  lives,  were  the  most  convinced,  apparently, 
as  to  the  soundness  of  their  information.  They  infuri 
ated  me  at  times,  particularly  when  their  advice  tended 
to  drive  us  out  of  the  course  I  was  interested  in,  and 
the  shore  road  was  the  road  I  wanted  to  follow.  I  per 
suaded  Franklin  to  pay  no  attention  to  this  old  fussbutton. 

"What  does  he  know?"  I  inquired.  "There  he  sits  at 
that  bridge  day  in  and  day  out  and  takes  toll.  Farmers 
with  heavy  loads  may  report  all  sorts  of  things,  but  we've 
seen  how  fine  the  dirt  roads  have  been  everywhere  we've 
followed  them." 

Speed  agreed  with  me. 

So  we  struck  out  along  the  shore  road  and  nothing 
could  have  been  better.  It  was  not  exactly  smooth,  but 
it  was  soft  with  a  light  dust  and  so  close  to  the  lake  that 
you  could  see  the  tumbling  waves  and  throw  a  stone  into 
them  if  you  chose;  and  at  certain  points  where  a  cove 
gave  a  wider  view,  there  were  people  bathing  and  tents 
tacked  down  along  the  shore  against  the  wind.  It  was 
wonderful.  Every  now  and  then  we  would  encounter 
young  men  and  women  bathers  ambling  along  the  road 
in  their  water  costumes,  and  in  one  instance  the  girl  was 
so  very  shapely  and  so  young  and  attractive  that  we  ex 
claimed  with  pleasure.  When  she  saw  us  looking  at  her 


CONNEAUT  203 

die  merely  laughed  and  waved  her  hands.  At  another 
point  two  young  girls  standing  beside  a  fence  called, 
"Don't  you  wish  you  could  take  us  along?"  They  were 
attractive  enough  to  make  anybody  wish  it. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

THE  GAY  LIFE  OF  THE  LAKE  SHORE 

THEN  came  Ashtabula  with  another  such  scene  as 
that  at  Conneaut,  only  somewhat  more  picturesque,  since 
the  road  lay  on  high  ground  and  we  had  a  most  strik 
ing  view  of  the  lake,  with  a  world  of  coal  cars  wait 
ing  to  be  unloaded  into  ships,  and  ships  and  cranes  and 
great  moving  derricks  which  formed  a  kind  of  filigree  of 
iron  in  the  distance  with  all  the  delicacy  of  an  etching. 

These  coal  and  iron  towns  of  Ohio  were  as  like  in 
their  way  as  the  larger  manufacturing  centers  of  the 
East  in  theirs.  Coming  into  this  place  we  passed  through 
a  small  slum  section  at  the  end  of  the  bridge  by  which 
we  were  entering,  and  because  there  was  a  water  scene 
here  which  suggested  the  Chicago  River  in  its  palmiest 
days  before  it  was  renovated  and  practically  deserted, 
I  suggested  that  we  stop  and  look  at  it.  Three  bums  of 
the  "Chimmie"  Fadden-"Chuck"  Connors  type  were 
standing  in  a  doorway  adjoining  a  saloon.  No  sooner 
did  they  see  us  pause  than  they  nudged  each  other  and 
whispered.  Franklin  and  I  passed  them  to  look  at  the 
scene.  Coming  back  we  climbed  in  the  car,  and  as  we 
did  so  the  huskiest  of  the  three  stepped  up  and,  with  a 
look  of  humility  assumed  for  the  occasion,  whimpered: 
uSay,  boss,  could  you  help  a  poor  down-and-out  to  a 
mouthful  of  food?" 

I  looked  at  him  wearily,  because  the  bluff  was  too 
much. 

Franklin,  however,  reached  in  his  pocket  and  gave 
him  fifteen  cents. 

"Why  fifteen  cents,  Franklin?"  I  enquired. 

uOh,  well,"  he  replied,  "it's  an  easy  way  to  get  rid 
of  them.  I  don't  like  the  looks  of  this  place." 

204 


THE  GAY  LIFE  OF  THE  LAKE  SHORE    205 

I  turned  to  look  at  the  recipient  back  among  his 
friends.  His  mouth  was  pulled  down  at  one  corner  as 
he  related,  with  a  leer  of  contempt,  how  easy  it  was  to 
bleed  these  suckers.  He  even  smiled  at  me  as  much  as 
to  say,  "You  mark!"  I  leered  back  with  the  greatest 
contempt  I  could  assemble  on  such  short  notice — a  great 
deal — but  it  did  not  cheer  me  any.  He  had  the  fifteen 
cents.  He  was  of  the  same  order  of  brain  that  today 
can  be  hired  to  kill  a  man  for  fifty  dollars,  or  will  un 
dertake  to  rob  or  burn  a  house. 

And  after  Ashtabula,  which  was  as  charming  as  any 
of  these  little  cities  to  look  at,  with  wide  shady  streets 
of  homes  and  children  playing  gaily  on  lawns  and  in 
open  lots  everywhere,  came  Geneva-on-the-Lake,  or 
Geneva  Beach,  as  it  seemed  to  be  called — one  of  those 
new-sprung  summer  resorts  of  the  middle  west,  which  al 
ways  amuse  me  by  their  endless  gaucheries  and  the  things 
they  have  not  and  never  seem  to  miss.  One  thing  they 
do  have  is  the  charm  of  newness  and  hope  and  possi 
bility,  which  excels  almost  anything  of  the  kind  you  can 
find  elsewhere. 

America  can  be  the  rawest,  most  awkward  and  inept 
land  at  times.  You  look  at  some  of  its  scenes  and  people 
on  occasions,  and  you  wonder  why  the  calves  don't  eat 
them.  They  are  so  verdant.  And  yet  right  in  the  midst 
of  a  thought  like  this  you  will  be  touched  by  a  sense 
of  youth  and  beauty  and  freedom  and  strength  and  hap 
piness  in  a  vigorous,  garish  way  which  will  disarm  you 
completely  and  make  you  want  to  become  a  part  of  it 
all,  for  a  time  anyhow. 

Here  lay  this  particular  beach,  high  up  above  the  lake, 
for  all  along  this  northern  portion  of  Ohio  the  land 
comes  close  to  the  water,  retaining  an  altitude  of  sixty 
or  seventy  feet  and  then  suddenly  dropping,  giving  room 
for  a  sandy  beach  say  sixty  or  seventy  feet  wide,  where 
a  few  tents  may  sometimes  be  found.  And  on  this 
higher  land,  facing  the  water,  are  strung  out  all  the  cot 
tages  and  small  hotels  or  summer  boarding  places,  with 
occasionally  some  stores  and  merry-go-rounds  and  res- 


206  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

taurants,  though  not  as  a  rule  the  gaudy  rumble-jumble 
of  a  beach  like  Coney  Island. 

And  the  costumes!  Heaven  bless  and  preserve  us  I 
The  patrons  of  this  beach,  as  I  learned  by  inquiry,  come 
mostly  from  Pittsburg  and  points  south  in  Ohio — Colum 
bus,  Dayton,  Youngstown.  They  bring  their  rattan  bags 
and  small  trunks  stuffed  to  bursting  with  all  the  contrap 
tions  of  assumed  high  life,  and  here  for  a  period  of 
anywhere  from  two  days  to  three  months,  according  to 
their  means,  associations,  social  position,  they  may  be 
seen  disporting  themselves  in  the  most  colorful  and 
bizarre  ways.  There  was  a  gay  welter  of  yellow  coats 
with  sky-blue,  or  white,  or  black-and-white  skirts — and 
of  blue,  green,  red  or  brown  coats,  mostly  knit  of  silk 
or  near-silk — with  dresses  or  skirts  of  as  sharply  con 
trasting  shades.  Hats  were  a  minus  quantity,  and  rib 
bons  for  the  hair  ranged  all  the  way  from  thin  blue  or 
red  threads  to  great  flaring  bands  of  ribbon  done  into 
enormous  bows  and  fastened  over  one  ear  or  the  other. 
Green,  blue,  red  and  white  striped  stick  candy  is  nothing 
by  comparison. 

There  were  youths  in  tan,  blue  and  white  suits,  but 
mostly  white  with  sailor  shirts  open  at  the  neck,  white 
tennis  shoes  and  little  round  white  navy  caps,  which  gave 
the  majority  of  them  a  jocular,  inconsequential  air. 

And  the  lawns  of  these  places !  In  England,  and  most 
other  countries  abroad,  I  noticed  the  inhabitants  seek  a 
kind  of  privacy  even  in  their  summer  gaieties — an  air 
of  reserve  and  exclusiveness  even  at  Monte  Carlo — but 
here ! !  The  lawns,  doors  and  windows  of  the  cottages 
and  boarding  houses  were  open  to  the  eyes  of  all  the 
world.  There  were  no  fences.  Croquet,  tennis,  basket 
ball  were  being  played  at  intervals  by  the  most  vivid 
groups.  There  were  swings,  hammocks,  rockers  and 
camp  chairs  scattered  about  on  lawns  and  porches.  All 
the  immediate  vicinity  seemed  to  be  a-summering,  and 
it  wanted  everyone  to  know  it. 

As  we  sped  into  this  region  and  stopped  in  front  of 
a  restaurant  with  a  general  store  attachment  at  one  side, 


THE  GAY  LIFE  OF  THE  LAKE  SHORE    207 

two  youths  of  that  summering  texture  I  have  indicated, 
and  both  in  white,  drew  near.  They  were  of  a  shal 
low,  vacant  character.  The  sight  of  a  dusty  car,  carry 
ing  a  license  tag  not  of  their  own  state,  and  with  bags 
and  other  paraphernalia  strapped  onto  it,  seemed  to 
interest  them. 

"From  New  York,  eh?"  inquired  the  taller,  a  cool, 
somewhat  shrewd  and  calculating  type,  but  with  that 
shallowness  of  soul  which  I  have  indicated — quite  vacant 
indeed.  "Did  you  come  all  the  way  from  New  York 
City?" 

"Yes,"  said  Franklin.  "Is  there  a  good  restaurant 
anywhere  hereabout?" 

"Well,  this  is  about  the  best,  outside  the  boarding 
houses  and  inns  around  here.  You  might  find  it  nicer 
if  you  stayed  at  one  of  the  inns,  though." 

"Why?"  asked  Franklin.     "Is  the  food  better?" 

"Well,  not  so  much  better — no.  But  you'd  meet  nicer 
people.  They're  more  sociable." 

"Yes,  now  our  inn,"  put  in  the  smaller  one  of  the 
two,  a  veritable  quip  in  his  ultra-summer  appearance. 
"Why  don't  you  come  over  to  our  place?  It's  very  nice 
there — lots  of  nice  people." 

I  began  to  look  at  them  curiously.  This  sudden  burst 
of  friendship  or  genial  companionship — taking  up  with 
the  stranger  so  swiftly — interested  me.  Why  should  they 
be  so  quick  to  invite  one  to  that  intimacy  which  in  most 
places  is  attained  only  after  a  period — and  yet,  when  you 
come  to  think  of  it,  I  suddenly  asked  myself  why  not. 
Is  chemistry  such  a  slow  thing  that  it  can  only  detect 
its  affinities  through  long,  slow  formal  movements?  I 
knew  this  was  not  true,  but  also  I  knew  that  there  was 
no  affinity  here,  of  any  kind — merely  a  shallow,  butter 
fly  contact.  These  two  seemed  so  very  lightminded  that 
I  had  to  smile. 

"They're  nice  genial  people,  are  they?"  I  put  in.  "Do 
you  suppose  we  could  introduce  ourselves  and  be 
friendly?" 


208  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

"Oh,  we'd  introduce  you — that's  all  right,"  put  in  this 
latest  Sancho.  "We  can  say  you're  friends  of  ours." 

"Shades  of  the  Hall  Room  Boys !"  I  exclaimed  to  my 
self.  "What  kind  of  world  is  this  anyway — what  sort 
of  people?  Here  we  ride  up  to  a  casino  door  in  the 
heart  of  a  summering  community,  and  two  souffle  youths 
in  white  offer  to  introduce  us  to  their  friends  as  friends 
of  theirs.  Is  it  my  looks,  or  Franklin's,  or  the  car,  or 
what?" 

A  spirit  of  adventure  began  to  well  up  in  me. 
I  thought  of  a  few  days  spent  here  and  what  they  might 
be  made  to  mean.  Thus  introduced,  we  might  soon  find 
interesting  companionship. 

But  I  looked  at  Franklin  and  my  enthusiasm  cooled 
slightly.  For  an  adventure  of  any  kind  one  needs  an 
absolutely  unified  enthusiasm  for  the  same  thing,  and 
I  was  by  no  means  sure  that  it  existed  here.  Franklin 
is  so  solemn  at  times — such  a  moral  and  social  main 
stay.  I  argued  that  it  was  best,  perhaps,  not  to  say 
all  that  was  in  my  mind,  but  I  looked  about  me  hope 
fully.  Here  were  all  those  costumes  I  have  indicated. 

"This  seems  to  be  quite  a  place,"  I  said  to  this  camp 
follower.  "Where  do  they  all  come  from?" 

"Oh,  Pittsburg  principally,  and  Cleveland.  Most  of 
the  people  right  around  here  are  from  Pittsburg." 

"Is  there  very  good  bathing  here?" 

"Wonderful.     As  good  as  anywhere." 

I  wondered  what  he  knew  about  bathing  anywhere  but 
here. 

"And  what  else  is  there?" 

"Oh,  tennis,  golf,  riding,  boating."  He  fairly  bristled 
with  the  social  importance  of  the  things  he  was  sug 
gesting. 

"They  seem  to  have  bright  colors  here,"  I  went  on. 

"You  bet  they  do,"  he  continued.  "There  are  a  lot 
of  swell  dressers  here,  aren't  there,  Ed?" 

"That's  right,"  replied  his  summery  friend.  "Some 
beauts  here.  George!  You  ought  to  see  'em  some 
days." 


THE  GAY  LIFE  OF  THE  LAKE  SHORE    209 

"They're  very  glorious,  are  they?" 

"That's  what." 

The  conversation  now  turned  back  to  us.  Where  were 
we  going?  What  were  we  going  for?  Were  we  en 
joying  the  trip?  Were  the  roads  good? 

We  told  them  of  Indiana,  and  rose  immediately  in 
their  estimation.  We  finally  declined  the  invitation  to 
be  introduced  into  their  circle.  Instead  we  went  into 
this  restaurant,  where  the  reception  room  was  also  a 
salesroom  of  sorts,  and  here  we  idled,  while  awaiting 
dinner. 

I  was  still  examining  picture  postcards  when  a  young 
man,  quite  young,  with  a  pink  face  and  yellowish  hair — 
a  Scandinavian,  I  took  it — came  up  beside  me  and  stood 
looking  at  the  pictures — almost  over  my  shoulder  I 
thought,  though  there  was  plenty  of  room  in  either  direc 
tion.  After  a  few  moments  I  turned,  somewhat  irritated 
by  his  familiarity,  and  glanced  at  his  shoes  and  suit, 
which  were  not  of  the  best  by  any  means,  and  at  his 
hands,  which  were  strong  and  well  formed  but  rough. 

"Nice  pictures  of  things  about  here,"  he  observed,  in 
a  voice  which  seemed  to  have  a  trace  of  the  Scandinavian 
in  it. 

"Yes,  very,"  I  replied,  wondering  a  little,  uncertain 
whether  it  was  merely  another  genial  American  seeking 
anyone  to  talk  to  or  someone  desirous  of  aid.  You  never 
can  tell. 

"Yes,"  he  went  on  a  little  nervously,  with  a  touch  of 
strain  in  his  voice,  "it  is  nice  to  come  to  these  places 
if  you  have  the  money.  We  all  like  to  come  to  them 
when  we  can.  Now  I  would  like  to  come  to  a  place 
like  this,  but  I  haven't  any  money.  I  just  walked  in  and 
I  thought  maybe  I  might  get  something  to  do  here.  It's 
a  nice  brisk  place  with  lots  of  people  working." 

"Now,  what's  his  game?"  I  asked  myself,  turning 
toward  him  and  then  away,  for  his  manner  smacked  a 
little  of  that  unctuous  type  of  religious  and  charitable 
emotion  which  one  encounters  in  side-street  missions — a 


210  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

most  despicable  type  of  sanctimonious  religiosity  and 
duty  worship. 

"Yes,  it  seems  to  be  quite  brisk,"  I  replied,  a  little 
coldly. 

"But  I  have  to  get  something  yet  tonight,  that  is  sure, 
if  I  am  to  have  a  place  to  sleep  and  something  to  eat." 

He  paused,  and  I  looked  at  him,  quite  annoyed  I  am 
sure.  "A  beggar/'  I  thought.  "Beggars,  tramps,  and 
ne'er-do-wells  and  beginners  are  always  selecting  me. 
Well,  I'll  not  give  him  anything.  I'm  tired  of  it.  I  did 
not  come  in  here  to  be  annoyed,  and  I  won't  be.  Why 
should  I  always  be  annoyed?  Why  didn't  he  pick  on 
Franklin?"  I  felt  myself  dreadfully  aggrieved,  I  know. 

"You'll  find  the  manager  back  there  somewhere,  I 
presume,"  I  said,  aloud.  "I'm  only  a  stranger  here  my 
self."  Then  I  turned  away,  but  only  to  turn  back  as  he 
started  off.  Something  about  him  touched  me — his 
youth,  his  strength,  his  ambitions,  the  interesting  way  he 
had  addressed  me.  My  rage  wilted.  I  began  to  think 
of  times  when  I  was  seeking  work.  "Wait  a  minute,"  I 
said;  "here's  the  price  of  a  meal,  at  least,"  and  I  handed 
him  a  bit  of  change.  His  face,  which  had  remained 
rather  tense  and  expressionless  up  to  this  time — the  face 
that  one  always  puts  on  in  the  presence  of  menacing 
degradation — softened. 

"Thank  you,  thank  you,"  he  said  feverishly.  "I  haven't 
eaten  today  yet.  Really  I  haven't.  But  I  may  get  some 
thing  to  do  here."  He  smiled  gratefully. 

I  turned  away  and  he  approached  the  small  dark 
American  who  was  running  this  place,  but  I'm  not  sure 
that  he  got  anything.  The  latter  was  a  very  irritable, 
waspish  person,  with  no  doubt  many  troubles  of  his  own. 
Franklin  approached  and  I  turned  to  him,  and  when  I 
looked  again  my  beggar  was  gone. 

I  often  wish  that  I  had  more  means  and  a  kindlier 
demeanor  wherewith  to  serve  difficult,  struggling  youth. 

I  could  not  help  noticing  that  the  whole  region,  as 
well  as  this  restaurant,  seemed  new  and  crudely  assem- 


THE  GAY  LIFE  OF  THE  LAKE  SHORE    211 

bled.  The  very  management  of  this  restaurant,  the  best 
in  the  place,  was  in  all  likelihood  not  the  same  which 
had  obtained  in  the  previous  year.  A  thing  like  that  is 
so  characteristic  of  these  mid-western  resort  atmospheres. 
The  help  (you  could  by  no  means  call  them  waiters,  for 
they  were  untrained  in  that  branch  of  service)  were  girls, 
and  mostly  healthy,  attractive  ones — here,  no  doubt,  in 
order  to  catch  a  beau  or  to  be  in  a  summer  resort 
atmosphere.  As  I  have  previously  indicated,  anybody, 
according  to  the  lay  mind  west  of  the  Atlantic,  can  run 
a  restaurant.  If  you  have  been  a  cook  on  a  farm  for 
some  hay  workers  or  reapers,  so  much  the  better. 
You  are  thereby  entitled  to  cook  and  to  be  hailed 
as  a  restaurateur.  Any  domestic  can  "wait  on  table." 
All  you  have  to  do  is  to  bring  in  the  dishes  and 
take  them  out  again.  All  you  need  to  do  to  steak  or 
fish  or  fowl  is  to  fry  it.  The  art  of  selection,  arrange 
ment,  combination  are  still  mysteries  of  the  decadent 
East.  The  West  is  above  these  things — the  new  West — 
God  bless  it!  And  if  you  ask  for  black  coffee  in  a  small 
cup,  or  potatoes  prepared  in  any  other  way  than  fried, 
or  should  you  desire  a  fish  that  carried  with  it  its  own 
peculiar  sauce,  they  would  stare  at  you  as  peculiar,  or, 
better  yet,  with  uncomprehending  eyes. 

But  these  girls,  outside  and  in — what  a  contrast  in 
American  social  relationships  they  presented!  During 
our  dinner  the  two  youths  had  departed  and  got  two 
maids  from  somewhere — maids  of  the  mildest,  most 
summery  aspect — and  were  now  hanging  about,  pending 
our  return,  in  order  to  have  more  words  and  to  indicate 
to  us  the  true  extent  of  their  skill  as  beaux  and  summer 
gentlemen  in  waiting.  As  I  looked  through  the  windows 
at  those  outside  and  contrasted  them  with  those  within 
and  now  waiting  on  us,  I  was  struck  with  the  difference, 
class  for  class,  between  the  girl  who  chooses  to  work 
and  the  girl  of  the  same  station  practically  who  would 
rather  do  something  else.  The  girls  outside  were  of  the 
gum-chewing,  typewriter  brand  of  summer  siren,  decked 
in  white  and  blue  dresses  of  the  most  feathery,  flouncy 


212  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

character,  and  sport  coats  or  jackets  in  broad,  heavy 
stripes,  one  black  and  white,  another  orange  and  blue, 
and  the  usual  ribbon  in  their  hair.  They  seemed  to  me 
to  be  obsessed  by  the  idea  of  being  summery  and  non 
chalant  and  sporty  and  preternaturally  gay — indeed,  all 
the  things  which  the  Sunday  newspaper  summer  girl 
should  be — a  most  amazing  concoction  at  best,  and  purely 
a  reflection  or  imitation  of  the  vagrant  thoughts  of  others 
— copies,  marsh  fire.  Incidentally  it  struck  me  that  in 
the  very  value  of  things  they  were  destined  to  be  nothing 
more  than  the  toys  and  playthings  of  men — such  men  as 
they  might  be  able  to  attract — not  very. important,  per 
haps,  but  as  vigorous  and  inconsequential  as  themselves. 
On  the  other  hand,  those  on  the  inside  were  so  much  more 
attractive  because  they  lacked  the  cunning  or  silly  so 
phistication  of  these  others  and  because,  by  the  very 
chemistry  of  their  being,  apparently,  they  were  drawn  to 
routine  motherhood,  legitimate  or  otherwise. 

Personally  I  am  by  no  means  a  conventionalist.  I 
have  never  been  able  to  decide  which  earthly  state  is 
best.  All  life  is  good,  all  life,  to  the  individual  who  is 
enjoying  himself  and  to  the  Creator  of  all  things.  The 
sting  of  existence  is  the  great  thing — the  sensory  sting, 
not  its  vocal  theories — but  that  shuts  out  the  religionist 
and  the  moralist  and  they  will  damn  me  forever.  But 
still  I  so  believe.  Those  girls  outside,  and  for  all  their 
fineness  and  fripperies,  were  dull;  whereas,  those  inside 
(some  of  them  anyhow)  had  a  dreamy,  placid  attractive 
ness  which  needed  no  particular  smartness  of  speech  or 
clothing  to  set  them  off.  One  of  them,  the  one  who 
waited  on  us,  was  a  veritable  Tess,  large,  placid,  sensuous, 
unconsciously  seductive.  Many  of  the  others  seemed  of  a 
life  they  could  not  master  but  only  gaze  after.  Where  are 
the  sensible  males  to  see  them,  I  thought.  How  is  it  that 
they  escape  while  those  others  flaunt  their  dizzy  gauds? 
But  I  soon  consoled  myself  with  the  thought  that  they 
would  not  escape — for  long.  The  strong  male  knows 
the  real  woman.  Over  and  above  ornament  is  the  chemic 


THE  GAY  LIFE  OF  THE  LAKE  SHORE     213 

attraction  which  laughs  at  ornament.  I  could  see  how 
the  waitresses  might  fare  better  in  love  than  the  others. 

But  outside  were  the  two  youths  and  their  maids  wait 
ing  for  us  and  we  were  intensely  interested  and  as  genial 
and  companionable  as  might  be.  One  of  these  girls  was 
dark,  svelte,  languorous,  rouged — a  veritable  siren  of 
the  modern  moving  picture  school — or  rather  a  copy 
of  a  siren.  The  other  was  younger,  blonde,  less  made- 
up-ish,  but  so  shallow.  Dear,  kind  heaven,  how  shallow 
some  people  really  are !  And  their  clothes ! 

The  conversation  going  on  between  them,  for  our 
benefit  largely,  was  a  thing  to  rejoice  in  or  weep  over, 
as  you  will.  It  was  a  hodge-podge  of  shallow  humor 
and  innuendo,  the  innuendo  that  conceals  references  to 
sex  and  brings  smiles  of  understanding  to  the  lips  of  the 
initiated. 

"Lelah  here  is  some  girl,  I'd  have  you  know."  This 
from  the  taller  of  the  two  summer  men,  who  was  feel 
ing  of  her  arm  familiarly. 

uHow  do  you  know?"  This  from  Lelah,  with  a  quiz 
zical,  evasive  smile. 

"Don't  I?" 

"Do  you?" 

"Well,  you  ought  to  know." 

"I  notice  that  you  have  to  ask." 

Or  this  other  gem  from  the  two  men: 

"Ella  has  nice  shoes  on  today." 

"That  isn't  all  Ella  has  on,  is  it?" 

"Well,  not  quite.     She  has  a  pretty  smile." 

I  gathered  from  the  many  things  thus  said,  and  the 
way  the  girls  were  parading  up  and  down  in  all  direc 
tions  in  their  very  pronounced  costumes,  that  if  sex  were 
not  freely  indulged  in  here,  the  beholding  of  it  with  the 
eyes  and  the  formulation  of  it  in  thought  and  appearance 
were  great  factors  in  the  daily  life  and  charm  of  the 
place.  There  are  ways  and  ways  for  the  natural  tendency 
of  the  world  to  show  itself.  The  flaunting  of  desire,  in 
its  various  aspects,  is  an  old  process.  It  was  so  being 
flaunted  here. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

A  SUMMER  STORM  AND  SOME  COMMENTS  ON  THE  PICTURE 

POSTCARD 

SHORTLY  after  leaving  Ashtabula  we  ran  into  a  storm 
— one  of  those  fine,  windy,  dusty,  tree-groaning  rains 
that  come  up  simply  and  magnificently  and  make  you  feel 
that  you  are  going  to  be  blown  into  kingdom  come  and 
struck  by  lightning  en  route.  As  we  sped  through  great 
aisles  of  trees  and  through  little  towns  all  bare  to  our 
view  through  their  open  doors,  as  though  they  had  not 
a  thing  to  conceal  or  a  marauder  to  fear,  the  wind  be 
gan  to  rise  and  the  trees  to  swish  and  whistle,  and  by  the 
glare  of  our  own  powerful  headlight  we  saw  clouds  of 
dust  rolling  toward  us.  A  few  heavy  drops  of  water  hit 
my  head  and  face  and  someone,  I  suppose  Franklin  (let 
me  put  all  the  blame  I  can  on  him  in  this  story — what 
else  are  hosts  for?),  suggested  that  we  put  up  the  top. 

Now  I,  for  one,  vote  automobile  tops  a  nuisance. 
They  are  a  crime,  really.  Here  was  a  fine  electric  storm, 
with  the  heavens  torn  with  great  poles  of  light  and  the 
woods  and  the  fields  and  distant  little  cottages  revealed 
every  few  seconds  with  startling  definiteness — and  we 
had  to  put  up  the  top.  Why?  Well,  there  were  bags 
and  coats  and  a  camera  and  I  know  not  what  else,  and 
these  things  had  to  be  protected.  My  own  glasses  began 
to  drip  and  my  chin  and  my  hair  were  very  wet.  So 
up  went  the  top. 

But,  worse  than  that,  the  sides  had  to  go  up,  for  now 
the  wind  was  driving  the  rain  sidewise  and  we  were  all 
getting  soaked  anyhow — so  up  went  the  sides.  Then, 
thus  protected  and  with  all  the  real  beauty  of  the  night 
shut  out,  we  rattled  along,  I  pressing  my  nose  to  the 
isinglass  windows  and  wishing  that  I  might  see  it  all.  I 

214 


A  SUMMER  STORM  215 

cursed  God  and  man  and  close,  stuffy  automobiles.  1 
snuggled  down  in  my  corner  and  began  to  dream  again 
when  presently,  say  one  hour  later,  or  two  or  three  (it 
must  have  been  two  or  three,  now  that  I  think  of  it), 
another  enormous  bridge  such  as  that  we  had  seen  at 
Nicholsen,  Pennsylvania,  hove  into  view,  down  a  curve 
which  our  lamps  illuminated  with  amazing  clearness. 

"Whoa !"  I  called  to  Speed,  as  though  he  were  a  horse. 

"You're  right,"  commented  Franklin,  without  further 
observation  on  my  part.  "That  is  interesting,  isn't  it?" 
Though  it  was  still  raining,  we  opened  those  storm  cur 
tains  and  clambered  out,  walking  on  ahead  of  the  car  to 
stand  and  look  at  it.  As  we  did  a  train  came  from  some 
where — a  long,  brightly  lighted  passenger  train — and 
sped  over  it  as  noiselessly  as  if  it  had  been  on  solid 
ground.  A  large  arch  rose  before  us,  an  enormous  thing, 
with  another  following  in  the  distance  and  bridging  a 
stream. 

"Think  I'd  better  sketch  that?"  queried  Franklin. 

"Indeed  I  do,"  I  replied,  "if  it  interests  you.  It's 
wonderful  to  me." 

We  wandered  on  down  the  curve  and  under  it,  through 
a  great  arch.  A  second  bridge  came  into  view — this  time 
of  iron — the  one  over  which  our  road  ran,  and  beyond 
that  a  third,  of  iron  or  steel  also,  much  higher  than  either 
of  the  others.  This  last  was  a  trolley  bridge,  and  as 
we  stood  here  a  trolley  car  approached  and  sped  over 
it.  At  the  same  time  another  train  glided  over  the  great 
stone  arch. 

"What  is  this — Bridge  Centre?"  I  inquired. 

"Transportationsburg,"  replied  Franklin.  "Can't  you 
see?" 

We  fell  to  discussing  lights  and  shadows  and  the  best 
angle  at  which  to  make  the  drawing. 

But  there  was  no  umbrella  between  us — useless  things, 
umbrellas — and  so  I  had  to  lay  my  mackintosh  on  Frank 
lin's  head  and  hold  it  out  in  front  of  him  like  an  awn 
ing,  while  he  peered  under  it  and  sketched  and  I  played 
porch  posts.  Sketching  so,  we  talked  of  the  great  walls 


216  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

of  Europe — Spain  and  Italy — old  Roman  walls — and 
how  these  new  things  being  built  here  in  this  fashion  must 
endure — long  after  we  were  gone — and  leave  traces  of 
what  a  wonderful  nation  we  were,  we  Americans 
(German-Americans,  Austro-Americans,  Greek-Ameri 
cans,  Italian-Americans,  French-Americans,  English- 
Americans,  Hindu- Americans). 

"Just  think,  Franklin,"  I  chortled,  "you  and  I  may  be 
remembered  for  thousands  and  thousands  of  years  as 
having  stood  here  tonight  and  sketched  this  very  bridge." 

"Uh,  huh,"  he  commented. 

"It  may  be  written  that  'In  A.  D.  1915,  Theodore 
Dreiser,  accompanied  by  one  Franklin  Booth,  an  artist, 
visited  the  site  of  this  bridge,  which  was  then  in  perfect 
condition,  and  made  a  sketch  of  it,  preserved  now  in 
that  famous  volume  entitled  "A  Hoosier  Holiday,"  by 
Theodore  Dreiser.* ' 

"You  know  how  to  advertise  your  own  wares,  don't 
you?"  he  said.  "Who  made  the  sketch?" 

"Why,  Franklin  Booth,  of  course." 

"But  you  didn't  say  so." 

"Why  didn't  I?" 

"Because  you  didn't." 

"Oh,  well.  We'll  correct  all  little  errors  like  that  in 
the  proof.  You'll  be  safe  enough." 

"Will  I?" 

"Surely  you  will." 

"Well,  in  that  case  I'll  finish  the  sketch.  For  a  mo 
ment  I  thought  I  wouldn't.  But  now  that  I'm  sure  to  be 
preserved  for  posterity 

He  went  scratching  on. 

The  lights  we  saw  ahead  of  us  were  those  of  Paines- 
ville,  Ohio,  another  manufacturing  and  trans-shipping 
city  like  Conneaut  and  Ashtabula,  and  this  was  the  Grand 
River  we  were  crossing,  a  rather  modest  stream,  it 
seemed  to  me,  for  so  large  a  name.  (I  learned  its 
title  from  a  picture  postcard  later  in  the  city.) 

One  should  be  impressed  with  the  development  of  this 


A  SUMMER  STORM  217 

picture  postcard  business  in  American  towns.  What  is 
there  to  photograph,  you  might  ask,  of  any  of  these 
places,  large  or  small?  Well,  waterworks  and  soldiers' 
monuments  and  the  residences  of  principal  citizens,  and 
so  on  and  so  forth.  When  I  was  a  boy  in  Warsaw  and 
earlier  in  Evansville  and  Sullivan,  there  wasn't  a  single 
picture  postcard  of  this  kind — only  those  highly  colored 
"panoramas"  or  group  views  of  the  principal  cities,  like 
New  York  and  Chicago,  which  sold  for  a  quarter  or  at 
least  fifteen  cents.  Of  the  smaller  towns  there  was  noth 
ing,  literally  nothing.  No  small  American  town  of  that 
date  would  have  presumed  to  suppose  that  it  had  any 
thing  of  interest  to  photograph,  yet  on  this  trip  there 
was  scarcely  a  village  that  did  not  contain  a  rack  some 
where  of  local  views,  if  no  more  than  of  clouds  and  rills 
and  cattle  standing  in  water  near  an  old  bridge.  By 
hunting  out  the  leading  drug  store  first,  we  could  almost 
invariably  discover  all  there  was  to  know  about  a  town 
in  a  scenic  way,  or  nearly  all.  It  was  most  gratifying. 

This  change  in  the  number  and  character  of  our  na 
tional  facilities  as  they  affect  the  very  small  towns  had 
been  impressing  me  all  the  way.  When  I  was  from  eight 
to  sixteen  years  of  age,  there  was  not  a  telephone  or  a 
trolley  car  or  an  ice  cream  soda  fountain  (in  the  mod 
ern  sense  of  that  treasure)  or  a  roller-skating  rink  or  a 
roller  skate  or  a  bicycle,  or  an  automobile  or  phono 
graph,  or  a  moving  picture  theatre,  or  indeed  anything 
like  the  number  of  interesting  and  new  things  we  have 
now — flying  machines  and  submarines,  for  instance.  It 
is  true  that  just  about  that  time — 1880-1886 — when  I 
left  Warsaw  for  the  world  outside,  I  was  beginning 
to  encounter  the  first  or  some  solitary  examples  of  these 
things.  Thus  the  first  picture  postcards  I  ever  found 
were  in  Chicago  in  1896  or  thereabouts,  several  years 
after  I  had  visited  the  principal  eastern  cities,  and  I 
would  have  seen  them  if  there  had  been  any.  The  first 
electric  light  I  ever  saw  was  in  Evansville,  Indiana,  in 
1882,  where  to  my  youthful  delight  and  amazement  they 
were  erecting  tall,  thin  skeleton  towers  of  steel,  not  less 


2i 8  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

than  one  hundred  and  twentyfive  feet  high,  and  only 
about  four  feet  in  diameter — (you  may  still  see  them 
in  Fort  Wayne,  Indiana) — and  carrying  four  arc  lights 
each  at  the  top.  Fifty  such  towers  were  supposed  to 
light  the  whole  city  of  Evansville,  a  place  of  between 
forty  and  fifty  thousand,  and  they  did,  in  a  dim,  mooney 
way.  I  remember  as  a  boy  of  twelve  standing  in  wonder, 
watching  them  being  put  up.  Evansville  seemed  such 
a  great  city  to  me  then.  These  towers  were  more  in 
teresting  as  a  spectacle  than  useful  as  a  lighting  sys 
tem,  however,  and  were  subsequently  taken  down. 

The  first  telephone  I  ever  saw  was  one  being  in 
stalled  in  the  Central  Fire  Station  at  Vincennes,  Indiana, 
in  1880  or  thereabouts.  At  the  time  my  mother  was 
paying  the  enforced  visit,  later  to  be  mentioned,  to  the 
wife  of  the  captain  of  this  particular  institution,  a  girl 
who  had  worked  for  her  as  a  seamstress  years  before. 
I  was  no  more  than  eight  at  the  time,  and  full  of  a 
natural  curiosity,  and  I  remember  distinctly  staring  at 
the  peculiar  instrument  which  was  being  hung  on  a  post 
in  the  centre  of  the  fire  station,  and  how  the  various 
firemen  and  citizens  stood  about  and  gaped.  There  was 
much  excitement  among  the  men  because  of  the  peculiar 
powers  of  the  strange  novelty.  I  think,  from  the  way 
they  stared  at  it,  while  Frank  Bellett,  the  Captain,  first 
talked  through  it  to  some  other  office  in  the  little  city, 
they  felt  there  must  be  something  spooky  about  it — some 
legerdemain  by  which  the  person  talking  at  the  other 
end  made  himself  small  and  came  along  the  wire,  or 
that  there  was  some  sprite  with  a  voice  inside  the  box 
which  as  an  intermediary  did  all  the  talking  for  both 
parties.  I  know  I  felt  that  there  must  be  some  such 
supernatural  arrangement  about  it,  and  for  this  reason 
I  too  looked  with  awe  and  wonder.  As  days  passed, 
however,  and  considerable  talking  was  done  through  it, 
and  my  own  mother,  putting  the  receiver  to  her  ear,  lis 
tened  while  her  friend,  the  wife,  called  from  somewhere 
outside,  my  awe,  if  not  the  wonder,  wore  off.  For  years, 
though,  perhaps  because  I  never  used  one  until  nearly 


A  SUMMER  STORM  219 

ten  years  later,  the  mystic  character  of  the  thing  stuck 
in  my  mind. 

It  was  much  the  same  thing  with  the  trolley  car  and 
the  roller  skate  and  the  bicycle.  I  never  saw  a  trolley 
car  until  I  was  seventeen  or  eighteen  years  of  age,  and 
then  only  an  experimental  one  conducted  on  a  mile  of 
track  laid  on  North  Avenue,  Chicago,  by  the  late  Charles 
T.  Yerkes,  at  that  time  the  principal  traction  magnate  of 
Chicago.  He  was  endeavoring  to  find  out  whether  the 
underground  trolley  was  a  feasible  thing  for  use  in  Chi 
cago  or  not  and  had  laid  a  short  experimental  section,  or 
had  had  it  laid  for  him.  I  was  greatly  astonished,  when 
I  first  saw  it,  to  think  it  would  go  without  any  visible 
means  of  propulsion — and  that  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  I 
had  already  seen  the  second  cable  road  built  in  America 
running  in  State  Street,  Chicago,  as  early  as  1884.  At 
that  time,  our  family  having  come  to  Chicago  for  the 
summer,  I  ran  an  errand  for  a  West  Madison  Street 
confectioner  which  took  me  to  a  candy  manufacturer's 
basement  in  State  Street.  There,  through  a  window  in 
the  front  of  the  store,  underground,  I  saw  great  engines 
going,  and  a  cable  on  wheels  spinning  by.  Every  now 
and  then  the  grip  of  a  car  would  appear  and  disappear 
past  an  opening  under  the  track,  which  was  here.  It 
was  most  astonishing,  and  gave  me  a  sense  of  vast  inex 
plicable  mystery  which  is  just  as  lively  today  as  it  ever 
was,  and  as  warranted. 

In  regard  to  the  bicycle,  the  first  one  I  ever  saw  was 
in  Warsaw  in  1884 — a  high-wheeled  one,  not  a  safety  I — 
and  the  first  pair  of  roller  skates  I  ever  saw  was  in  the 
same  place  in  1885,  when  some  adventurous  amusement 
provider  came  there  and  opened  a  roller-skating  parlor. 
It  was  a  great  craze  for  a  while,  and  my  brother  Ed 
became  an  expert,  though  I  never  learned.  There  were 
various  storms  in  our  family  over  the  fact  that  he  was 
so  eager  for  it,  staying  out  late  and  running  away,  and 
because  my  mother,  sympathetic  soul,  aided  and  abetted 
him,  so  keen  was  her  sympathy  with  childhood  and  play, 
whereas  my  father,  stern  disciplinarian  that  he  was,  ob- 


220  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

jected.  Often  have  I  seen  Ed  hanging  about  my  mother's 
skirts,  and  she,  distressed  and  puzzled,  finally  giving  him 
a  quarter  out  of  her  hard  earned  store  to  enjoy  himself. 
He  ought  certainly  to  have  the  most  tender  memories 
of  her. 

The  first  ice  cream  soda  fountain  I  ever  saw,  or  the 
first  ice  cream  soda  I  ever  tasted,  was  served  to  me  in 
Warsaw,  Indiana,  at  the  corner  book  store,  opposite  the 
courthouse,  subsequently  destroyed.  That  was  in  1885. 
It  was  called  to  my  attention  by  a  boy  named  Judson 
Morris,  whose  father  owned  the  store,  and  it  served  as 
an  introduction  and  a  basis  for  future  friendship,  our 
family  having  newly  moved  to  Warsaw.  It  had  just 
succeeded  a  drink  known  as  the  milk  shake,  which  had 
attained  great  popularity  everywhere  the  preceding  year. 
But  ice  cream  soda !  By  my  troth,  how  pale  and  watery 
milk  shake  seemed  in  comparison !  I  fell,  a  giddy  victim, 
and  have  never  since  recovered  myself  or  become  as  en 
thusiastic  over  any  other  beverage. 

And  so  I  could  continue — leaving  Franklin  and  Speed 
waiting  patiently  in  Painesville,  Ohio,  in  the  rain,  but  I 
won't.  We  hastened  in  after  Franklin  made  his  sketch, 
and,  owing  to  some  extraordinary  rush  of  business  which 
had  filled  the  principal  hotel,  were  compelled  to  take 
refuge  in  a  rickety  barn  of  a  house  known  as  "The  An 
nex" — an  annex  to  this  other  and  much  better  one. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

IN  CLEVELAND 

THE  next  morning  we  set  off  under  grey,  lowery  clouds, 
over  the  shore  road  to  Cleveland,  which  proved  better 
than  that  between  Erie  and  Painesville,  having  no  breaks 
and  being  as  smooth  as  a  table.  At  one  place  we  had 
to  stop  in  an  oatfield  where  the  grain  had  been  newly  cut 
and  shocked,  to  see  if  we  could  still  jump  over  the  shocks 
as  in  days  of  yore,  this  being  a  true  test,  according  to 
Speed,  as  to  whether  one  was  in  a  fit  condition  to  live 
eighty  years,  and  also  whether  one  had  ever  been  a  true 
farmer.  Franklin  and  Speed  leaped  over  the  shocks  with 
ease,  Franklin's  coat  skirts  flying  out  behind  in  a  most 
bird-like  manner,  and  Speed's  legs  and  arms  taking  most 
peculiar  angles.  When  it  came  my  turn  to  do  it,  I  funked 
miserably.  Actually,  I  failed  so  badly  that  I  felt  very 
much  distressed,  being  haunted  for  miles  by  the  thought 
of  increasing  age  and  impending  death,  for  once  I  was 
fairly  athletic  and  could  run  three  miles  at  a  steady  jog 
and  not  feel  it.  But  now — well  now,  whenever  I  reached 
the  jumping  point  I  couldn't  make  it.  My  feet  refused 
to  leave  the  ground.  I  felt  heavy. 

Alas !    Alas ! 

And  then  we  had  to  pause  and  look  at  the  lake,  which 
because  of  the  storm  the  night  before  and  the  stiff 
northwest  wind  blowing  this  morning,  offered  a  fine 
tumbling  spectacle.  As  to  dignity  and  impressiveness  I 
could  see  no  difference  between  this  lake  shore  and  most 
of  the  best  sea  beaches  which  I  have  seen  elsewhere.  The 
waves  were  long  and  dark  and  foamy,  rolling  in,  from  a 
long  distance  out,  with  a  thump  and  a  roar  which  was  as 
fierce  as  that  of  any  sea.  The  beach  was  of  smooth,  grey 
sand,  with  occasional  piles  of  driftwood  scattered  along 

221 


222  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

its  length,  and  twisted  and  tortured  trees  hanging  over 
the  banks  of  the  highland  above.  In  the  distance  we 
could  see  the  faint  outlines  of  the  city  of  Cleveland,  a 
penciled  blur,  and  over  it  a  cloud  of  dark  smoke,  the 
customary  banner  of  our  manufacturing  world.  I  de 
cided  that  here  would  be  a  delightful  place  to  set  up  a 
writing  shack  or  a  studio,  transferring  all  my  effects  from 
my  various  other  dream  homes,  and  spending  my  latter 
days.  I  should  have  been  a  carpenter  and  builder,  I 
think.  It  would  save  me  money  constructing  houses  for 
myself. 

In  the  suburbs  of  Cleveland  were  being  built  the  many 
comfortable  homes  of  those  who  could  afford  this  hand 
some  land  facing  the  lake.  Hundreds  of  cottages  we 
passed  were  done  in  the  newer  moods  of  our  American 
architects,  and  some  of  them  were  quite  free  of  the  hor 
rible  banalities  to  which  the  American  country  architect 
seems  addicted.  There  were  homes  of  real  taste,  with 
gardens  arranged  with  a  sense  of  their  architectural  value 
and  trees  and  shrubs  which  enhanced  their  beauty.  Here, 
as  I  could  tell  by  my  nerves,  all  the  ethical  and  social 
conventions  of  the  middle  class  American  and  the  middle 
West  were  being  practised,  or  at  least  preached.  Right 
was  as  plain  as  the  nose  on  your  face;  truth  as  definite 
a  thing  as  the  box  hedges  and  macadam  roads  which  sur 
rounded  them;  virtue  a  chill  and  even  frozen  maid.  If 
I  had  had  the  implements  I  would  have  tacked  up  a  sign 
reading  "Non-conformists  beware!  Detour  south 
through  factory  regions." 

As  we  drew  nearer  Cleveland,  this  same  atmosphere 
continued,  only  becoming  more  dense.  Houses,  instead 
of  being  five  hundred  feet  apart  and  set  in  impressive 
and  exclusive  spaces,  were  one  hundred  feet  apart  or  less. 
They  were  smartly  suburban  and  ultra-respectable  and 
refined.  The  most  imposing  of  churches  began  to  ap 
pear — I  never  saw  finer — and  schools  and  heavily  tree- 
shaded  streets.  Presently  we  ran  into  Euclid  Avenue,  an 
amazingly  long  and  wide  street,  once  Cleveland's  pride 
and  the  centre  of  all  her  wealthy  and  fashionable  life, 


IN  CLEVELAND  223 

but  now  threaded  by  a  new  double  tracked  trolley  line 
and  fallen  on  lesser,  if  not  absolutely  evil,  days.  This 
street  was  once  the  home,  and  still  may  be  for  all  I  know 
(his  immortal  residence  was  pointed  out  to  us  by  a  police 
man),  of  the  sacrosanct  John  D.  Rockefeller.  Yes,  in  his 
earlier  and  poorer  years,  when  he  was  worth  only  from 
seventy  to  eighty  millions,  he  lived  here,  and  the  house 
seemed  to  me,  as  I  looked  at  it  this  morning,  actually  to 
reflect  all  the  stodgy  conservatism  with  which  he  is 
credited.  It  was  not  smart — what  rich  American's  house 
of  forty  or  fifty  years  ago  ever  is? — but  it  was  solid  and 
impressive  and  cold.  Yes,  cold  is  the  word, — a  large, 
roomy,  silent  thing  of  grey  stone,  with  a  wide  smooth 
lawn  at  least  a  hundred  feet  wide  spreading  before  it,  and 
houses  of  its  same  character  flanking  it  on  either  hand. 
Here  lived  John  D.  and  plotted,  no  doubt,  and  from 
here  he  issued  to  those  local  religious  meetings  and  church 
socials  for  which  he  is  so  famous.  And  no  doubt  some 
one  or  more  of  the  heavy  chambers  of  this  house  con 
sumed  in  their  spaciousness  the  soft,  smooth  words  which 
meant  wealth  or  poverty  to  many  an  oil  man  or  competi 
tor  or  railroad  manipulator  whose  rates  were  subse 
quently  undermined.  For  John  D.  knew  how  to  outplot 
the  best  of  them.  As  an  American  I  forgive  him  for  out- 
plotting  the  rest  of  the  world.  As  an  individual,  well,  if 
he  weren't  intellectually  and  artistically  so  dull  I  could 
forgive  him  everything. 

uWhat  is  this?"  I  queried  of  Franklin.  "Surely 
Euclid  Avenue  isn't  being  given  over  to  trade,  is  it?  See 
that  drug  store  there,  built  in  front  of  an  old  home — and 
that  garage  tacked  on  to  that  mansion — impossible !" 

But  so  it  was.  These  great  old  mansions  set  back  in 
their  tremendous  spaces  of  lawn  were  seeing  the  very 
last  of  their  former  glory.  The  business  heart  of  the 
city  was  apparently  overtaking  them,  and  these  car  tracks 
were  so  new  I  was  uncertain  whether  they  were  being 
put  down  or  taken  up. 

I  hailed  a  policeman. 

"Are  these  tracks  being  removed  or  put  in?" 


224  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

'Tut  in,"  he  replied.  'They've  just  finished  a  long 
fight  here.  The  rich  people  didn't  want  it,  but  the  people 
won.  Tom  Johnson  began  fighting  for  this  years  ago." 

Tom  Johnson !  What  an  odd  sense  of  the  passing  of 
all  things  the  name  gave  me.  Between  1895  and  1910 
his  name  was  on  nearly  everyone's  tongue.  How  he  was 
hated  by  the  growing  rich !  In  the  face  of  the  upspring- 
ing  horde  of  financial  buccaneers  of  that  time — Hanna, 
Rockefeller,  Morgan,  Harriman,  Ryan — he  stood  out  as 
a  kind  of  tribune  of  the  people.  He  had  made  money 
in  business,  and  by  much  the  same  methods  as  every  other 
man,  taking  and  keeping,  but  now  he  declared  himself 
desirous  of  seeing  something  done  for  the  people — of 
doing  something — and  so  he  fought  for  three  cent  fares 
in  Cleveland,  to  be  extended,  afterwards,  everywhere,  I 
suppose. 

Don't  smile,  dear  reader.  I  know  it  sounds  like  a  joke. 
In  the  face  of  the  steady  settling  of  all  powers  and  privi 
leges  in  America  in  the  hands  of  a  powerful  oligarchy, 
the  richest  and  most  glittering  the  world  has  ever  seen, 
the  feeble  dreamings  of  an  idealist,  and  a  but  slightly 
equipped  one  at  that,  are  foolish ;  but  then,  there  is  some 
thing  poetic  about  it,  just  the  same,  quite  as  there  is  about 
all  the  other  poets  and  dreamers  the  world  has  ever 
known.  We  always  want  to  help  the  mass,  we  idealists, 
at  first.  We  look  about  and  see  human  beings  like  our 
selves,  struggling,  complaining,  dying,  pinching  along  with 
little  or  nothing,  and  our  first  thought  is  that  some  one 
human  being  or  some  group  of  beings  is  responsible,  that 
nature  has  designed  all  to  have  plenty,  and  that  all  we 
have  to  do  is  to  clear  away  the  greed  of  a  few  individuals 
who  stand  between  man  and  nature,  and  presto,  all  is  well 
again.  I  used  to  feel  that  way  and  do  yet,  at  times.  I 
should  hate  to  think  it  was  all  over  with  America  and  its 
lovely  morning  dreams. 

And  it's  fine  poetry,  whether  it  will  work  or  not.  It 
fits  in  with  the  ideas  of  all  prophets  and  reformers  since 
the  world  began.  Think  of  Henry  George,  that  lovely 
soul,  dying  in  New  York  in  a  cheap  hotel,  fighting  the 


IN  CLEVELAND  225 

battle  of  a  labor  party — he,  the  dreamer  of  "Progress 
and  Poverty."  And  Doctor  (The  Reverend  Father) 
McGlynn,  declaring  that  some  day  we  would  have  an 
American  Pope  strolling  down  Broadway  under  a  silk 
hat  and  being  thoroughly  social  and  helpful  and  demo 
cratic;  and  then  being  excommunicated  from  the  church 
for  it  or  silenced — which  was  it?  And  W.  J.  Bryan, 
with  his  long  hair  and  his  perfect  voice  (that  moving, 
bell-like  voice),  wishing  to  solve  all  the  ills  of  man  by 
sixteen  to  one — the  double  standard  of  gold  and  silver; 
and  John  P.  Altgeld,  high,  clear,  dreamy  soul,  with  his 
blue  eyes  and  his  sympathy  for  the  betrayed  anarchists 
and  the  poor;  and  "Potato"  Pingree,  as  they  used  to  call 
him,  once  governor  of  Michigan,  who  wanted  all  idle 
land  in  Detroit  and  elsewhere  turned  over  to  the  deserv 
ing  poor  in  order  that  they  might  grow  potatoes  or  some 
thing  else  on  it.  And  Henry  Ford  with  his  "peace  ship" 
and  his  minimum  of  five  dollars  a  day  for  every  man,  and 
Hart,  Schaffner  and  Marx  with  their  minimum  of  two 
dollars  for  every  little  seamstress  and  poorest  floor 
washer.  What  does  it  all  mean? 

I'll  tell  you. 

It  means  a  sense  of  equilibrium,  or  the  disturbance  of 
it.  Contrasts  remain  forever, — vast  differences  in  brain, 
in  heart,  in  opportunity,  in  everything;  but  now  and  then 
when  the  contrasts  become  too  sharp  or  are  too  closely 
juxtaposed,  up  rises  some  tender  spirit — Isaiah,  or  Jere 
miah,  or  Christ,  or  St.  Francis,  or  John  Huss,  or  Savan- 
arola,  or  Robert  Owen,  or  John  Brown,  or  Abraham  Lin 
coln,  or  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  or  Walt  Whitman,  or 
Lloyd  George,  or  Henry  Ford,  or  John  P.  Altgeld,  or 
W.  J.  Bryan — and  begins  to  cry  "Ho!  Assyrian"  or  its 
equivalent.  It  is  wonderful.  It  is  positively  beautiful 
and  thrilling,  this  love  of  balance  and  "fair  play"  in 
nature.  These  men  are  not  always  thinking  of  them 
selves,  you  may  depend  on  it.  It  is  inherent  in  the 
scheme  of  things,  just  as  are  high  mountains  and  deep 
valleys,  but  oh,  those  who  have  the  sense  of  it — those 
dreamers  and  poets  and  seekers  after  the  ideal! 


226  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

"They  can  kill  my  body  but  not  what  I  stand  for." — John 
Brown. 

"Blessed  are  the  merciful,  for  they  shall  obtain  mercy." — Christ. 

"Though  I  speak  with  the  tongues  of  men  and  of  angels  and 
have  not  charity,  I  am  become  as  sounding  brass  or  a  tinkling 
cymbal."— St.  Paul. 

"Oh,  poorest  Jesus,  the  grace  I  beg  of  Thee  is  to  bestow  on  me 
the  grace  of  the  highest  poverty." — St.  Francis. 

"I  with  my  barbaric  yawp,  yawping  over  the  roofs  of  the  world." 
— Walt  Whitman. 

Are  things  to  be  made  right  by  law?  I  will  admit  that 
some  wide  and  sweeping  differences  can  be  eliminated. 
Tyrants  can  occasionally  be  pulled  down  and  humani 
tarians  elevated  for  the  time  being.  Yes,  yes.  A  rough 
equation  can  be  struck  always,  and  it  is  something  of 
that  of  which  these  men  were  dreaming.  But  even  so, 
in  the  face  of  all  the  physical,  temperamental,  spiritual, 
intellectual,  to  say  nothing  of  climatic  and  planetary  dif 
ferences,  what  matter?  Will  law  save  an  idiot  or  undo 
a  Shelley  or  a  Caesar?  Will  law  pull  down  the  sun  and 
set  the  moon  in  its  place?  My  masters,  we  can  only 
sympathize  at  times  where  we  cannot  possibly  act, — and 
we  can  act  and  aid  where  we  cannot  cure.  But  of  a  uni 
versal  panacea  there  is  only  a  dream — or  so  I  feel.  Yet 
it  is  because  we  can  and  do  dream — and  must,  at  times — 
and  because  of  our  dreams  and  the  fact  that  they  must 
so  often  be  shattered,  that  we  have  art  and  the  joy  of 
this  thing  called  Life.  Without  contrast  there  is  no 
life.  And  without  dreams  there  might  not  be  any  alter 
ation  in  these  too  sharp  contrasts.  But  where  would  our 
dreams  be,  I  ask  you — or  the  need  of  them — if  all  of  that 
of  which  we  are  compelled  to  dream  and  seek  in  an 
agony  of  sweat  and  despair  were  present  and  we  did  not 
need  to  dream?  Then  what? 

But  let  us  away  with  abstrusities.  Let  us  sing  over 
Life  as  it  is.  These  tall,  poetic  souls — are  they  not  beau 
tiful?  And  would  you  not  have  it  so  that  they  may 
appear? 

In  riding  up  this  same  street  I  was  on  familiar  ground, 


IN  CLEVELAND  227 

for  here,  twentytwo  years  before,  in  that  same  raw  spring 
which  took  me  to  Buffalo,  I  stopped,  looking  for  work — 
and  found  some,  of  sorts.  I  connected  myself  for  a  very 
little  while  (a  week  or  two)  with  the  Sunday  issue  of  the 
Plain  Dealer  and  did  a  few  specials,  trying  to  prove  to 
the  incumbent  of  the  high  office  of  Sunday  editor  that  I 
was  a  remarkable  man.  He  did  not  see  it — or  me.  He 
commented  once  that  my  work  was  too  lofty  in  tone,  that 
I  loved  to  rhapsodize  too  much.  I  know  he  was  right. 
Nevertheless,  the  second  city  afterwards  (Pittsburg), 
like  the  others  from  which  I  had  just  come  (Toledo,  St. 
Louis,  and  Chicago) ,  liked  me  passing  well.  But  my  am 
bition  did  not  run  to  a  permanent  position  in  Cleveland 
anyhow. 

Just  the  same,  and  what  was  of  interest  to  me  this 
morning  as  I  rode  into  Cleveland,  was  that  here,  after  a 
most  wonderful  ramble  east  from  St.  Louis,  I  had  arrived, 
quite  as  in  Buffalo,  spiritually  very  hungry  and  lorn.  As 
I  look  back  on  it  now  I  know  that  I  must  have  been  a 
very  peculiar  youth,  for  nothing  I  could  find  or  do  con 
tented  me  for  so  much  as  an  hour.  I  had  achieved  a 
considerable  newspaper  success  in  St.  Louis,  but  had 
dropped  it  as  being  meaningless;  and  because  of  a  silly 
dream  about  running  a  country  newspaper  (which  I  shall 
narrate  later)  in  a  town  called  Grand  Rapids,  Ohio,  I 
had  a  chance  to  take  over  said  country  paper,  but  when 
I  looked  it  over  and  pictured  to  myself  what  the  local  life 
would  be,  I  fled  in  horror.  In  Toledo  I  encountered  a 
poet  and  an  enthusiast,  a  youth  destined  to  prove  one  of 
the  most  helpful  influences  in  my  whole  career,  with  whom 
I  enjoyed  a  period  of  intense  mental  cerebration,  yet  him 
I  left  also,  partly  because  I  lacked  money  and  an  interest 
ing  future  there,  but  more  because  I  felt  restless  and 
wanted  to  see  more  of  the  world. 

One  of  my  principal  trials  at  this  time  was  that  I  was 
in  love  and  had  left  the  object  of  my  adoration  behind 
me,  and  was  not  sure  that  I  would  ever  earn  enough 
money  to  go  and  fetch  her, — so  uncertain  were  my  talents 
and  my  opportunities  in  my  own  eyes. 


228  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

And  like  Buffalo,  which  came  after  Cleveland  in  my 
experience,  this  city  seemed  dirty  and  raw  and  black, 
but  forceful.  America  was  in  the  furnace  stage  of  its 
existence.  Everything  was  in  the  making, — fortunes,  art, 
its  social  and  commercial  life,  everything.  The  most  as 
tonishing  thing  in  it  was  its  rich  men,  their  houses,  fac 
tories,  institutions  of  commerce  and  pleasure.  Nothing 
else  had  occurred.  There  was  nothing  to  see  but  busi 
ness  and  a  few  hotels, — one,  really — and  theatres.  I 
remember  looking  at  a  great  soldiers'  monument  (it  is 
still  here  in  the  principal  square)  and  wondering  why  so 
large  a  monument.  I  do  not  recall  that  any  man  of  Cleve 
land  particularly  distinguished  himself  in  the  Civil  War. 

But  the  one  thing  that  struck  me  as  of  greatest  import 
in  those  days  was  Euclid  Avenue  with  its  large  houses 
and  lawns  which  are  now  so  close  to  the  business  heart, 
and  its  rich  men,  John  D.  Rockefeller  and  Mark  Hanna 
and  Henry  M.  Flagler  and  Tom  Johnson.  Rockefeller 
had  just  given  millions  and  millions  to  revivify  the  almost 
defunct  University  of  Chicago,  then  a  small  Baptist 
College,  to  say  nothing  of  being  hailed  (newly  then) 
as  the  richest  man  in  America.  All  of  these  people  were 
living  here  in  Euclid  Avenue,  and  I  looked  up  their  houses 
and  all  the  other  places  of  interest,  envying  the  rich  and 
wishing  that  I  was  famous  or  a  member  of  a  wealthy 
family,  and  that  I  might  meet  some  one  of  the  beautiful 
girls  I  imagined  I  saw  here  and  have  her  fall  in  love  with 
me. 

Tra,  la !  Tra,  la !  There's  nothing  like  being  a  pas 
sionate,  romantic  dunce  if  you  want  to  taste  this  wine  of 
wizardry  which  is  life.  I  was  and  I  did.  .  .  . 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

THE  FLAT  LANDS  OF  OHIO 

BUT  now  Cleveland  by  no  means  moved  me  as  it  once 
had.  Not  that  there  was  anything  wrong  with  Cleveland.- 
The  change  was  in  me,  no  doubt — a  septicaemia  which 
makes  things  look  different  in  middle  life.  We  break 
fasted  at  a  rather  attractive  looking  restaurant  which 
graced  a  very  lively  outlying  corner,  where  a  most  stately 
and  perfect  featured  young  woman  cashier  claimed  our 
almost  undivided  attention.  (Hail,  Eros !)  And  then  we 
sped  on  to  the  Hollenden,  an  hotel  which  I  recalled  as 
being  the  best  in  my  day,  to  consult  the  Cleveland  Auto 
mobile  Club  as  to  the  condition  of  the  roads  west. 

Sitting  before  this  hotel  in  our  car,  under  a  grey  sky 
and  with  the  wind  whipping  about  rather  chilly  for  an 
August  morning,  I  was  reminded  of  other  days  spent  in 
this  same  hotel,  not  as  a  guest  but  as  a  youthful  chair 
warmer  between  such  hours  as  I  was  not  working  on  the 
Cleveland  Plain  Dealer  or  walking  the  streets  of  the  city, 
or  sleeping  in  the  very  dull  room  I  had  engaged  in  a  very 
dingy  and  smoky  looking  old  house.  Why  didn't  I  get 
a  better  place?  Well,  my  uncertainty  as  to  whether  I 
should  long  remain  in  Cleveland  was  very  great.  This 
house  was  convenient  to  the  business  heart,  the  rooms 
were  clean,  and  from  the  several  windows  on  the  second 
floor  I  could  see  a  wide  sweep  of  the  lake,  with  its 
white  caps  and  gulls  and  ships,  and  closer  at  hand  the 
imposing  buildings  of  the  city.  It  was  a  great  spectacle, 
and  I  was  somewhat  of  a  recluse  and  fonder  of  spec 
tacles  than  I  was  of  people. 

But  the  Hollenden,  which  was  then  the  principal  hotel 
of  the  city  and  centre  of  all  the  extravagant  transient 
life  of  the  time,  appealed  to  me  as  a  convenient  method 

229 


230  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

of  obtaining  comfort  of  sorts  without  any  expense.  News 
paper  men  have  a  habit  of  making  themselves  at  home 
almost  anywhere.  Their  kaleidoscopic  contact  with  the 
rough  facts  of  life,  and  their  commercial  compulsion  to 
go,  do,  see,  under  all  circumstances  and  at  all  hours,  soon 
robs  them  of  that  nervous  fear  or  awe  which  possesses 
less  sophisticated  souls.  When  you  are  sent  in  the  morn 
ing  to  attend  a  wedding  or  a  fire,  at  noon  to  interview  a 
celebrity  or  describe  a  trial,  and  at  night  to  report  an  ex 
plosion,  a  political  meeting  or  a  murder,  you  soon  lose 
all  that  sense  of  unwelcomed  intrusion  which  restrains  the 
average  citizen.  Celebrities  become  mere  people. 
Gorgeous  functions  melt  into  commonplace  affairs,  no 
better  than  any  other  function  that  has  been  or  will  be 
again;  an  hotel  like  this  is  little  more  than  a  mere  loung 
ing  place  to  the  itinerant  scribe,  to  the  comforts  of  which 
as  a  representative  of  the  press  he  is  entitled. 

If  not  awe  or  mystery,  then  certainly  nervous  anticipa 
tion  attaches  to  the  movements  and  personality  of  nearly 
all  reporters.  At  least  it  does  in  my  case.  To  this  day, 
though  I  have  been  one  in  my  time,  I  stand  in  fear  of 
them.  I  never  know  what  to  expect,  what  scarifying 
question  they  are  going  to  hurtle  at  me,  or  what  cold, 
examining  eyes  are  going  to  strip  me  to  the  bone — eyes 
that  represent  brains  so  shrewd  and  merciless  that  one 
wonders  why  they  do  not  startle  the  world  long  before 
they  usually  do. 

In  those  days  this  hotel  was  the  most  luxurious  in  Cleve 
land,  and  here,  between  hours,  because  it  was  cold  and 
I  was  lonely,  I  came  to  sit  and  stare  out  at  all  the  passing 
throng,  vigorous  and  active  enough  to  entertain  anyone. 
It  was  a  brisk  life  that  Cleveland  presented,  and  young. 
The  great  question  with  me  always  was,  how  did  people 
come  to  be,  in  the  first  place?  What  were  the  underlying 
laws  of  our  being?  How  did  it  come  that  human  beings 
could  separate  themselves  from  cosmic  solidarity  and 
navigate  alone?  Why  did  we  all  have  much  the  same 
tastes,  appetites,  desires?  Why  should  two  billion  people 
on  earth  have  two  feet,  two  eyes,  two  hands?  The  fact 


THE  FLAT  LANDS  OF  OHIO  231 

that  Darwin  had  already  set  forward  his  facts  as  to  evolu 
tion  did  not  clear  things  up  for  me  at  all.  I  wanted  to 
know  who  started  the  thing  evolving,  and  why.  And  so 
I  loved  to  sit  about  in  places  like  this  where  I  could  see 
people  and  think  about  it. 

Incidentally  I  wanted  to  think  about  government  and 
the  growth  of  cities  and  the  value  and  charm  of  different 
professions,  and  whether  my  own  somewhat  enforced 
profession  (since  I  had  no  cunning,  apparently,  for  any 
thing  else)  was  to  be  of  any  value  to  me.  I  was  just  at 
the  age  when  the  enjoyment  of  my  life  and  strength 
seemed  the  most  important  thing  in  the  world.  I  wanted 
to  live,  to  have  money,  to  be  somebody,  to  meet  and 
enjoy  the  companionship  of  interesting  and  well  placed 
people,  to  seem  to  be  better  than  I  was.  While  I  by  no 
means  condemned  those  above  or  beneath,  nor  ignored 
the  claims  of  any  individual  or  element  to  fair  and  courte 
ous  treatment,  still,  materialist  that  I  was,  I  wanted  to 
share  on  equal  terms  with  the  best,  in  all  the  more  and 
most  exclusive  doings  and  beings.  The  fact  that  the 
world  (in  part)  was  busy  about  feasts  and  pleasures,  that 
there  were  drawingrooms  lighted  for  receptions,  dining- 
rooms  for  dinner,  ballrooms  for  dancing,  and  that  I  was 
nowhere  included,  was  an  aching  thorn.  I  used  to  stroll 
about  where  theatres  were  just  receiving  their  influx  of 
evening  patrons  or  where  some  function  of  note  was  being 
held,  and  stare  with  avid  eyes  at  the  preparations.  I 
felt  lone  and  lorn.  A  rather  weak  and  profitless  tendency, 
say  you?  Quite  so;  I  admit  it.  It  interests  me  now  quite 
as  much  as  it  possibly  could  you.  I  am  now  writing  of 
myself  not  as  I  am,  but  as  I  was. 

We  gained  the  information  that  the  best  road  to  Fort 
Wayne  was  not  via  the  lake  shore,  as  we  wished,  but 
through  a  town  called  Elyria  and  Vermilion,  and  so 
on  through  various  Ohio  towns  to  the  Indiana  line.  I 
did  not  favor  that  at  all.  I  argued  that  we  should  go 
by  the  lake  anyhow,  but  somehow  we  started  for  Elyria 
'Delirious,"  as  we  called  it. 


232  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

In  leaving  Cleveland  I  urged  Franklin  to  visit  the  re 
gion  where  originally  stood  the  house  in  which  I  had 
stopped,  and  to  my  surprise  I  found  the  place  entirely 
done  over — cleared  of  all  the  old  tracks,  houses  and 
docks  which,  from  the  formal  point  of  view,  once  marred 
the  waterfront.  In  their  stead  were  several  stately  mu 
nicipal  buildings  facing  the  wide  bosom  of  the  lake  and 
surrounded  by  great  spaces  of  smooth  grass.  It  was 
very  imposing.  So  the  spot  I  had  chosen  as  most  inter 
esting  to  me  had  become  the  civic  centre  of  the  city !  This 
flattered  me  not  a  little. 

But  Elyria  and  Vermilion — what  about  them? 

Nothing.    Just  Ohio  towns. 

At  Elyria  we  found  a  stream  which  had  been  diverted 
and  made  to  run  a  turbine  engine  in  order  that  the  town 
might  have  light;  but  it  was  discovered  afterward  that 
there  wasn't  enough  water  power  after  all  to  supply  the 
town,  and  so  extra  light  had  to  be  bought  and  paid  for. 
The  works  were  very  picturesque — a  deep,  craggy  cave, 
at  the  bottom  of  which  was  the  turbine  engine  room,  cut 
out  of  the  solid  rock  apparently,  the  water  pouring  down 
through  it.  I  thought  what  a  delightful  place  it  was  for 
the  town  boys  to  play! 

But  this  inland  country  was  really  too  dreary.  All  the 
uncomfortable  experiences  of  my  early  youth  began  to 
come  back  as  I  viewed  these  small  cottages  set  in  endless 
spaces  of  flat  land,  with  nothing  but  scrubby  trees,  wire 
fences  and  occasionally  desolately  small  and  bare  white 
churches  to  vary  the  landscape.  "What  a  life!"  I  kept 
saying  to  myself.  "What  a  life !"  And  I  still  say  it, 
"What  a  life !"  It  would  require  endless  friends  to  make 
such  a  landscape  endurable. 

Before  reaching  the  lake  again,  we  traversed  about 
twenty  miles  of  a  region  that  seemed  to  me  must  be  de 
voted  to  the  chicken  raising  business,  we  saw  so  many  of 
them.  In  one  place  we  encountered  a  huge  natural  amphi 
theatre  or  depression  which  could  easily  have  been  turned 
into  a  large  lake — the  same  hollowed  out  by  a  stream 
known  as  the  Vermilion  River.  In  another  we  came  to 


THE  FLAT  LANDS  OF  OHIO  233 

a  fine  threshing  scene  with  all  the  implements  for  the 
work  in  full  motion — a  scene  so  attractive  that  we  stopped 
and  loafed  a  while,  inquiring  as  to  the  rewards  of  farm 
ing  in  this  region.  In  still  another  place  we  passed  a 
small  river  pleasure  ground,  a  boating  and  bathing  place 
which  was  probably  patronized  by  the  villagers  here 
about.  It  suggested  all  sorts  of  sweet,  simple  summer 
romances. 

Then  Vermilion  came  into  view  with  a  Chautauqua 
meeting  announced  as  "coming  soon/'  and  a  cove  with 
a  lighthouse  and  pretty  launches  and  sailboats  at  anchor. 
Speed  announced  that  if  we  were  going  to  idle  here,  as 
usual,  he  would  stop  at  the  first  garage  and  get  oil  and 
effect  certain  repairs,  and  there  we  left  him,  happy  at  his 
task,  his  body  under  the  machine,  while  we  walked  on 
into  the  heart  of  the  village.  It  being  noontime,  the  hope 
of  finding  a  restaurant  lured  us,  as  well  as  that  possibil 
ity  of  seeing  something  different  and  interesting  which 
the  sight  of  every  new  town  held  out,  at  least  to  me. 
Here  we  had  lunch  then,  and  quite  a  good  one  too,  with 
a  piece  of  cherry  pie  thrown  in  for  good  measure,  if  you 
please,  and  then  because  the  restaurant  was  conducted 
by  a  Japanese  by  the  name  of  B.  Kagi,  and  because  the 
girl  who  waited  on  us  looked  like  an  Americanized 
product  of  the  Flowery  Kingdom,  I  asked  her  if  she  was 
Japanese. 

I  never  got  a  blacker  look  in  my  life.  For  a  moment 
her  dark  eyes  seemed  to  shoot  sparks.  Her  whole  de 
meanor,  which  hitherto  had  been  pleasant  and  helpful, 
changed  to  one  of  deadly  opposition.  "Certainly  not," 
she  replied  with  a  sting  in  her  voice,  and  I  saw  clearly 
that  I  had  made  a  most  painful  faux  pas.  I  felt  called 
upon  to  explain  or  apologize  to  Franklin,  who  heard  and 
saw  it  all.  He  was  most  helpful. 

"I  suppose/'  he  commented,  "in  these  small  middle 
West  towns  it  is  declasse  to  be  Japanese.  They  don't  dis 
criminate  much  between  Japanese  and  Chinese.  To  sug 
gest  anything  like  that  probably  hurts  her  feelings  dread- 


234  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

fully.     If  people  here  discover  it,  it  lowers  her  in  their 
eyes,  or  that  is  what  she  thinks." 

"But   she   looks  Japanese   to   you,   doesn't   she?"    I 
queried,   humbly. 

"Not  very,  no." 

I  looked  again  and  it  semed  very  obvious.  Back  in  the 
kitchen  was  occasionally  visible  B.  Kagi,  and  it  seemed  to 
me  even  then  that  the  girl  looked  like  him.  However,  the 
air  was  so  frigid  from  then  on  that  I  scarcely  enjoyed  my 
meal.  And  to  confound  me,  as  it  were,  several  towns 
people  came  in  and  my  supposedly  purely  Japanese  maid 
talked  in  the  normal  middle  West  fashion,  even  to  a  kind 
of  a  nasal  intonation  which  we  all  have.  Obviously  she 
was  American  born  and  raised  in  this  region.  "But  why 
the  likeness?"  I  kept  saying  to  myself  in  my  worst  and 
most  suspicious  manner.  And  then  I  began  to  build  up 
a  kind  of  fictional  background  for  her,  with  this  B.  Kagi 
as  her  real,  but  for  reasons  of  policy,  concealed  father, 
and  so  on  and  so  forth,  until  I  had  quite  a  short  story 
in  mind.  But  I  don't  suppose  I'll  ever  come  to  the  pleas 
ure  of  writing  it. 


CHAPTER   XXX 

OSTEND  PURGED  OF  SIN 

AT  Vermilion  the  sun  suddenly  burst  forth  once  more, 
clear  and  warm  from  a  blanket  of  grey,  and  the  whole 
world  looked  different  and  much  more  alluring.  Speed 
arrived  with  the  car  just  when  we  had  finished  luncheon, 
and  we  had  the  pleasure  of  sitting  outside  and  feeling 
thoroughly  warm  and  gay  while  he  ate.  Betimes  Frank 
lin  commented  on  the  probable  character  of  the  life  in  a 
community  like  this.  He  was  of  the  conviction  that  it 
never  rose  above  a  certain  dead  level  of  mediocrity — 
however  charming  and  grateful  the  same  might  be  as 
life — and  that  all  the  ideas  of  all  concerned  ran  to  simple 
duties  and  in  grooves  of  amusing,  if  not  deadly  preju 
dice  ;  which  was  entirely  satisfactory,  so  long  as  they  did 
not  interfere  with  or  destroy  your  life.  He  was  con 
vinced  that  there  was  this  narrow,  solemn  prejudice  which 
made  all  life  a  sham,  or  a  kind  of  rural  show  piece,  in 
which  all  played  a  prescribed  part,  some  thinking  one 
thing,  perhaps,  and  secretly  conforming  to  it  as  much 
as  possible,  while  publicly  professing  another  and  con 
forming  to  that,  publicly,  or,  as  is  the  case  with  the  ma 
jority,  actually  believing  in  and  conforming  to  life  as 
they  found  it  here.  I  know  there  were  many  such  in 
the  home  communities  in  which  I  was  brought  up.  Frank 
lin  was  not  one  to  charge  general  and  widespread  hy 
pocrisy,  as  do  some,  but  rather  to  sympathize  with  and 
appreciate  the  simple  beliefs,  tastes,  and  appetites  of  all 
concerned. 

"Now  take  those  four  town  loafers  sitting  over  there 
on  that  bin  in  front  of  that  store,"  he  commented,  apropos 
of  four  old  cronies  who  had  come  out  to  sun  themselves. 
"They  haven't  a  single  thing  in  their  minds  above  petty 

235 


236  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

little  humors  which  do  not  seriously  affect  anyone  but 
themselves.  They  sit  and  comment  and  jest  and  talk 
about  people  in  the  town  who  are  doing  things,  quite  as 
four  ducks  might  quack.  They  haven't  a  single  thing  to 
do,  not  an  important  ambition.  Crime  of  any  kind  is 
nearly  beyond  them." 

Just  then  a  boy  came  by  crying  a  Cleveland  afternoon 
paper.  He  was  calling,  "All  about  the  lynching  of  Leo 
Frank."  This  was  a  young  Jew  who  had  been  arrested 
in  Atlanta,  Georgia,  some  months  before,  charged  with 
the  very  disturbing  crime  of  attempted  rape  and  subse 
quent  murder,  the  victim  being  a  pretty  working  girl  in 
a  factory  of  which  the  murderer,  socalled,  was  foreman 
or  superintendent.  The  trick  by  which  the  crime  was  sup 
posed  to  have  been  accomplished,  as  it  was  charged,  was 
that  of  causing  the  girl  to  stay  after  work  and  then,  when 
alone,  attempting  to  seduce  or  force  her.  In  this  in 
stance  a  struggle  seems  to  have  ensued.  The  girl  may 
have  fallen  and  crushed  her  head  against  a  table,  or  she 
may  have  been  struck  on  the  head.  The  man  arrested 
denied  vigorously  that  he  had  anything  to  do  with  it.  He 
attempted,  I  believe,  to  throw  the  blame  on  a  negro  jani 
tor,  or,  if  not  that,  he  did  nothing  to  aid  in  clearing  him 
of  suspicion.  And  there  is  the  bare  possibility  that  the 
negro  did  commit  the  crime,  though  personally  I  doubted 
it.  When,  upon  trial,  Frank's  conviction  of  murder  in 
the  first  degree  followed,  a  great  uproar  ensued,  Jews  and 
other  citizens  in  all  parts  of  the  country  protested  and 
contributed  money  for  a  new  trial.  The  case  was  ap 
pealed  to  the  supreme  court,  but  without  result.  Local 
or  state  sentiment  was  too  strong.  It  was  charged  by 
the  friends  of  the  condemned  man  that  the  trial  had  been 
grossly  unfair,  and  that  Southern  opposition  to  all  man 
ner  of  sex  offenses  was  so  abnormal  and  peculiar,  hav 
ing  a  curious  relationship  to  the  inversion  of  the  psycho 
analyst,  that  no  fair  trial  could  be  expected  in  that  sec 
tion.  Personally,  I  had  felt  that  the  man  should  have 
been  tried  elsewhere  because  of  this  very  sectional  char 
acteristic,  which  I  had  noticed  myself. 


OSTEND  PURGED  OF  SIN 


237 


It  had  been  charged  that  a  southern  mob  overawed  the 
jury  in  the  very  court  room  in  which  the  case  had  been 
conducted,  that  the  act  of  rape  had  never  really  been 
proved,  that  the  death  had  really  been  accidental  as  de 
scribed,  that  the  very  suspicious  circumstance  of  the  body 
being  found  in  the  cellar  was  due  to  fear  on  the  part  of 
the  murderer,  whoever  he  was,  of  being  found  out,  and 
that  the  girl  had  not  been  brutally  slain  at  all.  Neverthe 
less,  when  the  reigning  governor,  whose  term  was  about 
to  expire,  commuted  the  sentence  from  death  to  life  im 
prisonment,  he  had  to  leave  the  state  under  armed  protec 
tion,  and  a  few  weeks  later  the  criminal,  if  he  was  one, 
was  set  upon  by  a  fellow  convict  in  the  penitentiary  at 
Atlanta  and  his  throat  cut.  It  was  assumed  that  the  con 
vict  was  employed  by  the  element  inimical  to  Frank  at 
the  trial.  A  little  later,  while  he  was  still  in  the  hospital, 
practically  dying  from  this  wound,  Frank  was  taken  out 
by  a  lynching  party,  taken  to  the  small  home  town  of  the 
girl,  Marietta,  Georgia,  and  there  lynched.  It  was  this 
latest  development  which  was  being  hawked  about  by 
the  small  newsboy  at  Vermilion. 

Personally,  as  I  say,  I  had  the  feeling  that  Frank  had 
been  unjustly  dealt  with.  This  seemed  another  exhibition 
of  that  blood  lust  of  the  South  which  produces  feuds, 
duels,  lynchings  and  burning  at  the  stake  even  to  this 
day  and  which  I  invariably  relate  to  the  enforced  sup 
pression  of  very  natural  desires  in  another  direction. 
Southerners  are  usually  so  avid  of  women  and  so  loud 
in  their  assertions  that  they  are  not.  I  have  no  opposi 
tion  to  Southerners  as  such.  In  many  respects  they  are 
an  interesting  and  charming  people,  courteous,  hospitable, 
a  little  inclined  to  over-emphasis  of  gallantry  and  chivalry 
and  their  alleged  moral  purity,  but  otherwise  interesting. 
But  this  sort  of  thing  always  strikes  me  as  a  definite  in 
dictment  of  the  real  native  sense  of  the  people.  Have 
they  brains,  poise,  judgment?  Why,  then,  indulge  in  the 
antics  and  furies  of  children  and  savages? 

I  raged  at  the  South  for  its  narrowness  and  inefficiency 
and  ignorance.  Franklin,  stung  by  the  crime,  no  doubt, 


238  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

agreed  with  me.  He  told  me  of  being  in  a  quick  lunch 
room  in  New  York  one  day  when  a  young  Southerner 
entered  and  found  a  negro  in  the  place,  eating.  Now 
as  everyone  knows,  this  is  a  commonplace.  I,  often,  have 
sat  next  to  a  negro  and  eaten  in  peace  and  comfort.  But 
according  to  Franklin,  the  first  impulse  of  this  Southerner 
was  to  make  a  scene  and  stir  up  as  much  prejudice  as 
possible,  beginning,  as  usual,  with  "What  the  hell  is  a 
damned  negro  doing  in  here,  anyhow?" 

"He  looked  about  for  sympathy,"  said  Franklin,  "but 
no  one  paid  the  slightest  attention  to  him.  Then  he  be 
gan  pushing  his  chair  about  irritably  and  swaggering, 
but  still  no  one  heeded  him.  Finally,  reducing  his  voice 
to  a  grumble,  he  went  quietly  and  secured  his  sandwich, 
his  coffee  and  his  pie,  like  any  other  downtrodden  Amer 


ican." 


"But  what  a  blow  it  must  have  been  to  him  to  find 
himself  swamped  by  a  sea  of  indifference!"  I  said — "not 
a  soul  to  share  his  views!" 

"It  is  that  sort  of  thing  that  makes  the  South  a  jest 
to  me,"  continued  Franklin.  "I  can't  stand  it." 

His  face  was  quite  sour,  much  more  so  than  I  had  seen 
it  on  any  other  occasion  on  this  tour. 

"Oh,  well,"  I  said,  "those  things  adjust  themselves  in 
the  long  run.  Frank  is  dead,  but  who  knows,  lynching 
may  be  killed  by  this  act.  The  whole  North  and  West 
is  grieved  by  this.  They  will  take  it  out  of  the  South 
in  contempt  and  money.  Brutality  must  pay  for  itself 
like  a  stone  flung  in  the  water,  if  no  more  than  by  rings 
of  water.  The  South  cannot  go  on  forever  doing  this 
sort  of  thing." 

After  we  had  raged  sufficiently  we  rode  on,  for  by  now 
Speed  had  finished  his  lunch.  Here,  following  that  lake 
road  I  have  mentioned,  we  were  in  an  ideal  realm  for 
a  time  again,  free  of  all  the  dreary  monotony  of  the  land 
farther  south.  The  sun  shone,  the  wind  blew,  and  we  for 
got  all  about  Frank  and  careened  along  the  shore  look 
ing  at  the  tumbling  waves.  Once  we  climbed  down 
a  steep  bank  and  stood  on  the  shore,  expatiating  on  how 


CEDAR    POINT,    LAKE    ERIE 
A  Norse  Sky 


OSTEND  PURGED  OF  SIN  239 

fine  it  all  was.  Another  time  we  got  off  to  pick  a  few 
apples  ready  to  our  hand.  There  were  many  detours 
and  we  passed  a  fair  sized  town  called  Huron,  basking  in 
a  blaze  of  afternoon  light,  but  for  once  not  stopping  be 
cause  it  lay  a  little  to  the  right  of  our  road  to  Sandusky. 
In  another  hour  we  were  entering  the  latter  place,  a  clean, 
smooth  paved  city  of  brick  and  frame  cottages,  with 
women  reading  or  sewing  on  doorsteps  and  porches,  and 
a  sense  of  American  solidarity  and  belief  in  all  the  virtues 
hovering  over  it  all. 

I  never  knew  until  I  reached  there  and  beheld  it  with 
my  own  eyes  that  Sandusky  has  near  it  one  of  the  finest 
fresh  water  beaches  in  the  world — and  I  have  seen 
beaches  and  beaches  and  beaches,  from  those  at  Monte 
Carlo,  Nice  and  Mentone  to  those  that  lie  between  Port 
land,  Maine,  and  New  Brunswick,  Georgia.  It  is  called 
Cedar  Point,  and  is  not  much  more  than  twenty  minutes 
from  the  pier  at  the  foot  of  Columbus  Avenue,  in  the 
heart  of  the  city — if  you  go  by  boat.  They  have  not  been 
enterprising  enough  as  yet  to  provide  a  ferry  for  auto 
mobiles.  Once  you  get  there  by  a  very  roundabout  trip 
of  twelve  miles,  you  can  ride  for  seven  miles  along  a 
cement  road  which  parallels  exactly  the  white  sand  of  the 
beach  and  allows  you  to  enjoy  the  cool  lake  winds  and 
even  the  spray  of  the  waves  when  the  wind  is  high.  It  is 
backed  by  marsh  land,  some  of  which  has  been  drained 
and  is  now  offered  as  an  ideal  and  exclusive  residence 
park. 

But  the  trip  was  worth  the  long  twelve  miles — splen 
didly  worth  it — once  we  had  made  up  our  minds  to  re 
turn  there, — for  coming  we  had  passed  it  without  know 
ing  it.  What  induced  us  to  go  was  a  number  of  picture 
cards  we  saw  in  the  principal  department  store  here, 
showing  Cedar  Point  Beach  in  a  storm,  Cedar  Point 
Beach  crowded  with  thousands  of  bathers,  Cedar  Point 
Beach  Pier  accommodating  three  or  four  steamers  at 
once,  and  so  forth,  all  very  gay  and  summery  and  all 
seeming  to  indicate  a  world  of  Monte  Carloesque  pro 
portions. 


240  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  nothing  like  Monte  Carlo 
or  any  other  beach,  except  for  its  physical  beauty  as  a 
sea  beach,  for  how  could  a  watering  place  on  a  lake  in 
Ohio  have  any  of  the  features  of  a  cosmopolitan  ocean 
resort?  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  boasted  two  very 
large  hotels,  a  literally  enormous  casino  and  bathing  pa 
vilion,  and  various  forms  of  amusement  pavilions,  it  was 
without  the  privilege  of  selling  a  drop  of  intoxicants, 
and  its  patrons,  to  the  number  of  thousands,  were  any 
thing  but  smart — just  plain,  Middle  West  family  people. 

What'll  we  do  with  the  Middle  West  and  the  South? 
Are  they  gradually  and  unconsciously  sinking  into  the 
demnition  doldrums?  Suppose  our  largest  soap  factories, 
our  largest  reaper  works,  and  our  largest  chewing  gum 
emporiums  are  out  there — what  of  it?  It  doesn't  help 
much  to  amass  large  fortunes  making  routine  things  that 
merely  increase  the  multitude  who  then  sit  back  and  do 
dull,  routine  things.  Life  was  intended  for  the  spectacu 
lar,  I  take  it.  It  was  intended  to  sting  and  hurt  so  that 
songs  and  dreams  might  come  forth.  When  it  becomes 
mere  plethora  and  fixity,  it  is  nothing — a  stultifying  world. 
When  a  great  crisis  comes — as  come  it  surely  will  at 
some  time  or  other — if  people  have  just  eaten  and  played 
and  not  dreamed  vastly  and  beautifully,  they  are  as  chaff 
blown  by  the  wind  or  burned  in  the  oven.  They  do 
not  even  make  a  good  spectacle.  They  are  just  pushed 
aside,  destroyed,  forgotten. 

But  this  resort  was  so  splendid  in  its  natural  aspects 
I  could  not  help  contrasting  its  material  use  by  these 
middle  westerners  with  what  would  have  been  the  case 
if  it  were  situate  say  in  the  South  of  France,  or  on  the 
shores  of  Holland  or  Belgium.  Anyone  who  has  visited 
Scheveningen  or  Ostend,  or  Nice  or  Cannes,  need  scarcely 
be  told  there  is  a  certain  smartness  not  even  suggested 
by  the  best  of  our  American  resorts.  Contrasted  even 
with  these  latter,  this  island  place  was  lower  in  the  scale. 
(I  presume  the  Christian  Middle  West  would  say  it  was 
higher.)  We  motored  out  there  positively  thrilled  by  a 
halcyon  evening  in  which  a  blood  red  sun,  aided  by  tat- 


OSTEND  PURGED  OF  SIN  241 

tered,  wind  whipped  clouds,  combined  to  give  the  day's 
close  a  fabled,  almost  Norse  aspect.  The  long  beach 
was  so  beautiful  that  it  evoked  exclamations  of  surprise 
and  delight.  Think  of  being  able  to  tear  along  for 
seven  miles  and  more,  the  open  water  to  your  right,  a 
weird,  grass  grown  marsh  world  dotted  with  tall,  gaunt 
trees  to  your  left,  this  splendid  cloud  world  above,  turgid 
with  red  and  pink,  and  a  perfect  road  to  ride  on !  We 
tore.  But  when  we  reached  the  extreme  point  of  land 
known  as  Cedar  Point,  and  devoted,  as  I  have  said,  to 
the  more  definite  entertainment  of  the  stranger,  things 
were  very  different.  The  exterior  of  all  that  I  saw  was 
quite  charming,  but  imagine  an  immense  casino  devoted 
to  tables  for  people  who  bring  their  own  lunch  or  dinner 
and  merely  want  to  buy  coffee  or  milk  or  soda ! ! — No 
beer  sold  here,  if  you  please.  A  perfectly  legitimate  and 
laudable  atmosphere,  say  you?  Quite  so,  only 

And  then  the  large  hotels !  We  looked  at  them.  The 
prices  of  the  best  one  ranged  from  two  to  four  dollars 
a  day;  the  other  from  one  to  two ! ! !  Shades  of  Atlantic 
City  and  Long  Beach ! — And  remember  that  these  were 
well  built,  well  equipped  hotels.  The  beach  pavilions 
were  attractive,  but  the  crowd  was  of  a  simple,  inexperi 
enced  character.  I  am  not  sniffing.  Did  I  not  praise 
Geneva  Beach?  I  did.  And  before  I  left  here  I  was 
fond  of  this  place  and  would  not  have  changed  it  in  any 
least  detail.  I  would  not  have  even  these  mid-westerners 
different,  in  spite  of  anything  I  may  have  said.  They 
seem  to  know  that  Sunday  School  meetings  are  important 
and  that  one  must  succeed  in  business  in  some  very  small 
way;  but  even  so,  they  are  a  vivacious,  hopeful  crew,  and 
as  such  deserving  of  all  praise. 

Franklin  and  I  walked  about  talking  about  them  and 
contrasting  them  with  the  East.  Our  conclusion  was  that 
the  East  is  more  schooled  in  vice  and  sensuality,  and  show 
and  luxury,  perhaps,  and  that  these  people  were  sweet 
and  amusing  and  all  right — here.  We  found  a  girl  tend 
ing  a  cigar  counter  in  the  principal  casino — a  very  angular, 
not  too  attractive  creature,  but  not  homely  either,  and 


242  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

decidedly  vivacious.  I  could  not  help  contrasting  her 
with  the  maidens  who  wait  on  you  at  telephone  booths 
and  stands  generally  in  New  York,  and  who  fix  you  with 
an  icy  stare  and,  at  telephone  booths,  inquire,  "Numbah, 
please?"  She  was  quite  set  up,  in  a  pleasantly  human 
way,  by  the  fact  that  she  was  in  charge  of  a  cigar  stand 
in  so  vivacious  a  world,  and  communicated  her  thoughts 
to  us  with  the  greatest  pleasure  and  fluency. 

"Do  you  have  many  people  here  every  day?"  I  asked, 
thinking  that  because  I  had  seen  three  excursion  steamers 
lying  at  anchor  at  the  foot  of  the  principal  street  in  San- 
dusky  it  might  merely  be  overrun  by  holiday  crowds  oc 
casionally. 

"Indeed,  yes,"  she  replied  briskly.  "The  two  big  ho 
tels  here  are  always  full,  and  on  the  coldest  days  we 
have  four  or  five  hundred  in  bathing.  Haven't  you  been 
here  in  the  day  time  yet?  Well,  ya  just  ought  to  be  here 
when  it's  very  hot  and  the  sun  is  bright.  Crowds! 
Course,  I  haven't  been  to  Atlantic  City  or  any  of  them 
swell  eastern  places,  but  people  that  have  tell  me  that 
this  is  one  of  the  finest  beaches  anywhere.  Style!  You 
just  oughta  see.  And  the  crowds !  The  bathing  pavilions 
are  packed,  and  the  board  walk.  There  are  thousands 
of  people  here." 

"I  suppose,  then,  this  casino  fills  up  completely?"  I 
said,  looking  round  and  seeing  a  few  empty  tables  here 
and  there. 

It  had  evidently  been  raining  the  day  before,  and  even 
early  this  morning,  for  it  was  pleasantly  cool  tonight  and 
this  seemed  to  have  kept  away  some  people. 

"Well,  you  just  oughta  see  it  on  a  real  hot  night,  if 
you  don't  think  we  have  crowds  here.  Full !  Why  people 
stand  around  and  wait.  It's  wonderful!" 

"Indeed?    And  is  there  much  money  spent  here?" 

"Well,  I  suppose  as  much  as  anywhere.  1  don't  know 
about  them  big  resorts  in  the  East,  but  there's  enough 
money  spent  here.  Goodness!  People  come  and  take 
whole  soots  of  rooms  at  these  big  hotels.  You  see  some 
mighty  rich  people  here." 


OSTEND  PURGED  OF  SIN  243 

Franklin  and  I  availed  ourselves  of  the  cafeteria  sys 
tem  of  this  place  to  serve  ourselves  and  be  in  the  life. 
We  walked  along  the  beach  looking  at  the  lights  come 
out  on  the  hotel  verandas  and  in  the  pavilions  and  under 
the  trees.  We  walked  under  these  same  trees  and 
watched  the  lovers  courting,  and  noted  the  old  urge  of 
youth  and  blood  on  every  hand.  There  was  dancing  in 
one  place,  and  at  a  long  pier  reaching  out  into  the  bay 
on  the  landward  side,  a  large  ferry  steamer  was  unload 
ing  hundreds  more.  Finally  at  ten  o'clock  we  returned 
Sanduskyward,  listening  to  the  splash  of  the  waves  on  the 
shore,  and  observing  the  curious  cloud  formations  which 
hung  overhead,  interspersed  with  stars.  In  them  once 
I  saw  a  Russian  moujik's  head  with  the  fur  cap  pulled 
low  over  the  ears — that  immemorial  cap  worn  by  the 
Assyrians  and  Chaldeans.  Again  I  saw  an  old  hag  pursu 
ing  a  wisp  of  cloud  that  looked  like  a  fleeing  hare,  and 
then  two  horsemen  riding  side  by  side  in  the  sky.  Again 
I  saw  a  whale  and  a  stag,  and  finally  a  great  hand,  its 
fingers  outspread — a  hand  that  seemed  to  be  reaching 
up  helplessly  and  as  if  for  aid. 

The  night  was  so  fine  that  I  would  have  counseled  rid 
ing  onward  toward  Fort  Wayne,  but  when  we  reached 
Sandusky  again  and  saw  its  pleasant  streets  and  a  clean- 
looking  hotel,  we  concluded  that  we  would  stay  by  the 
ills  we  knew  rather  than  to  fly  toward  others  that  we 
knew  not  of. 


CHAPTER   XXXI 

WHEN   HOPE    HOPPED   HIGH 

IT  is  Anatole  France,  I  think,  who  says  somewhere 
that  "robbery  is  to  be  condoned;  the  result  of  robbery 
respected."  Even  so,  listen  to  this  story.  We  came  into 
this  hotel  at  eleven  p.  M.  or  thereabouts.  Franklin,  who 
is  good  at  bargaining,  or  thinks  he  is,  sallied  up  to  the 
desk  and  asked  for  two  rooms  with  bath,  and  an  arrange 
ment  whereby  our  chauffeur  could  be  entertained  for 
less — the  custom.  There  was  a  convention  of  some  kind 
in  town — traveling  salesmen  in  certain  lines,  I  believe — 
and  all  but  one  room  in  this  hotel,  according  to  the  clerk, 
was  taken.  However,  it  was  a  large  room — very,  he 
said,  with  three  beds  and  a  good  bath.  Would  we  take 
that?  If  so,  we  could  have  it,  without  breakfast,  of 
course,  for  three  dollars. 

"Done,"  said  Franklin,  putting  all  three  names  on  the 
registry. 

It  was  a  good  room,  large  and  clean,  with  porcelain 
bath  of  good  size.  We  arose  fairly  early  and  break 
fasted  on  the  usual  hotel  breakfast.  I  made  the  pain 
ful  mistake  of  being  betrayed  by  the  legend  "pan  fish 
and  fried  mush"  from  taking  ham  and  eggs. 

After  our  breakfast  we  came  downstairs  prepared 
to  pay  and  depart,  when,  in  a  polite  voice — oh,  very 
suave — the  day  clerk,  a  different  one  from  him  of  the 
night — announced  to  Franklin,  who  was  at  the  window, 
"Seven-fifty,  please." 

"How  do  you  make  that  out?"  inquired  Franklin, 
taken  aback. 

"Three  people  in  one  room  at  three  dollars  a  day 
each  (two  dollars  each  for  the  night) — six  dollars. 
Breakfast,  fifty  cents  each,  extra — one-fifty.  Total,  seven- 
fifty." 

244 


WHEN  HOPE  HOPPED  HIGH  245 

"But  I  thought  you  said  this  room  was  three  for  the 
night  for  three  ?" 

"Oh,  no — three  dollars  each  per  day.  Two  dollars 
each  for  the  night.  We  always  let  it  that  way." 

"Oh,  I  see,"  said  Franklin,  curiously.  "You  know 
what  the  night  clerk  said  to  me,  do  you?" 

"I  know  the  regular  rate  we  charge  for  this  room." 

For  the  fraction  of  a  moment  Franklin  hesitated,  then 
laid  down  a  ten  dollar  bill. 

"Why  do  you  do  that,  Franklin?"  I  protested.  "It 
isn't  fair.  I  wouldn't.  Let's  see  the  manager." 

"Oh,  well,"  he  half  whispered  in  weariness.  "What 
can  you  do  about  it?  They  have  you  at  their  mercy." 

In  the  meantime,  the  clerk  had  slipped  the  bill  in  the 
drawer  and  handed  back  two-fifty  in  change. 

"But,  Franklin,"  I  exclaimed,  "this  is  an  outrage.  This 
man  doesn't  know  anything  about  it,  or  if  he  does,  he's 
swindling.  Why  doesn't  he  get  the  manager  here  if  he's 
on  the  level?" 

This  gentle  clerk  merely  smiled  at  me.  He  had  a 
comfortable,  even  cynical,  grin  on  his  face,  which  enraged 
me  all  the  more. 

"You  know  what  you  are?"  I  asked  him  asudden. 
"You're  a  damned,  third  rate  fakir  and  swindler!  You 
know  you're  lying  when  you  say  that  room  rents  for  three 
per  person  when  three  occupy  it.  That's  nine  dollars  a 
day  for  a  room  in  an  hotel  that  gets  two  or  three  dollars 
at  the  outside." 

He  smiled,  unperturbed,  and  then  turned  to  wait  on 
other  people. 

I  raged  and  swore.  I  called  him  a  few  more  names, 
but  it  never  disturbed  him  the  least.  I  demanded  to  see 
the  mythical  manager — but  he  remained  mythical.  Frank 
lin,  shocked,  went  off  to  get  a  cigar,  and  then  helped  Speed 
carry  out  the  bags,  porters  being  scarce.  Meanwhile,  I 
hung  around  hoping  that  glaring  and  offering  to  fight 
would  produce  some  result.  Not  at  all.  Do  you  think 
I  got  back  our  three  dollars,  or  that  I  ever  saw  the  man 
ager?  Never.  The  car  was  ready.  Franklin  was  wait- 


246  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

ing.  He  looked  at  me  as  much  as  to  say,  "Well,  you  do 
love  to  fight,  don't  you?"  Finally  I  submitted  to  the  in 
evitable,  and,  considerably  crestfallen,  clambered  into  the 
car,  while  Franklin  uttered  various  soothing  comments 
about  the  futility  of  attempting  to  cope  with  scoundrels 
en  route.  What  was  a  dollar  or  two,  more  or  less?  But 
as  we  rode  out  of  Sandusky  I  saw  myself  (i)  beating 
the  hotel  clerk  to  death,  (2)  tearing  the  hotel  down  and 
throwing  it  into  the  lake,  (3)  killing  the  manager  and  all 
the  clerks  and  help,  (4)  marching  a  triumphant  army 
against  the  city  at  some  future  time,  and  razing  it  to  the 
last  stone. 

"I  would  show  them,  by  George !     I  would  fix  them !" 

"Aren't  the  clouds  fine  this  morning?"  observed  Frank 
lin,  looking  up  at  the  sky,  as  we  rolled  out  of  the  city. 
"See  that  fine  patch  of  woods  over  there.  Now  that 
we're  getting  near  the  Indiana  line  the  scenery  is  begin 
ning  to  improve  a  little,  don't  you  think?" 

We  were  in  a  more  fertile  land,  I  thought — smoother, 
more  prosperous.  The  houses  looked  a  little  better,  more 
rural  and  homey. 

"Yes,  I  think  so,"  I  grumbled. 

"And  that's  the  lake  off  there.  Isn't  the  wind  fresh 
and  fine?" 

It  was. 

In  a  little  while  he  was  telling  me  of  some  Quakers  who 
inhabited  a  Quaker  community  just  north  of  his  home 
town,  and  how  one  of  them  said  to  another  once,  in  a 
fit  of  anger: 

"Wilbur,  thee  knows  I  can  lick  thee,  the  best  day  thee 
ever  lived." 

The  idea  of  two  Quakers  fighting  cheered  me.  I  felt 
much  better. 

But  now  tell  me — don't  you  think  I  ought  to  destroy 
Sandusky  anyhow,  as  a  warning? 

After  we  left  Sandusky  I  began  to  feel  at  home  again, 
for  somehow  this  territory  southwest  was  more  like  In 
diana  than  any  we  had  seen — smooth  and  placid  and 


WHEN  HOPE  HOPPED  HIGH  247 

fertile — it  was  a  homelike  land.  We  scudded  through  a 
place  called  Clyde,  hung  madly  with  hundreds  of  little 
blue  and  white  triangular  banners  announcing  that  a  Chau- 
tauqua  was  to  be  held  here  within  a  few  days — one  of 
those  simple,  country  life  Chautauquas  which  do  so  much, 
apparently,  to  enliven  this  mid-western  world.  And  then 
we  came  to  a  place  called  Fremont,  which  had  once  had 
the  honor  of  being  the  home  and  death  place  (if  not  birth 
place)  of  the  Hon.  Rutherford  B.  Hayes,  once  President 
of  the  United  States  by  accident — the  man  who  stole  the 
office  from  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  who  was  elected.  A  queer 
honor — but  dishonor  is  as  good  as  honor  any  day  for 
ensuring  one  a  place  in  the  memory  of  posterity. 

And  after  that  we  drove  through  places  called  Wood- 
side  and  Pemberton  and  Portage — you  know  the  size — 
only  in  these  towns,  by  now,  I  was  seeing  exact  dupli 
cates  of  men  I  had  known  in  my  earliest  days.  Thus 
at  Woodside  where  we  asked  our  way  to  Pemberton  and 
Bowling  Green,  Ohio,  the  man  who  leaned  against  our 
car  was  an  exact  duplicate  of  a  man  I  had  known  in 
Sullivan,  over  thirty  years  before,  who  used  to  drive  a 
delivery  wagon,  and  the  gentleman  he  was  driving  (a 
local  merchant  of  some  import,  I  took  it)  was  exactly 
like  old  Leonard  B.  Welles,  who  used  to  run  one  of  the 
four  or  five  successful  grocery  stores  in  Warsaw.  He 
had  a  short,  pointed,  and  yet  full  beard,  with  steely  blue 
eyes  and  a  straight,  thin-lipped  mouth — but  not  an  un 
kindly  expression  about  them.  I  began  to  think  of  the 
days  when  I  used  to  wait  for  old  Mr.  Welles  to  serve  me. 

Later  we  came  to  a  river  called  Portage,  yellow  and 
placid  and  flowing  between  winding  banks  that  sep 
arated  fields  of  hay  from  fields  of  grain;  and  then  we 
began  to  draw  near  to  a  territory  with  which  I  had  been 
exceedingly  familiar  twenty  years  before — so  much  so 
that  it  remains  as  fresh  as  though  it  had  been  yesterday. 

You  must  know,  because  I  propose  to  tell  you,  that  in 
the  fair  city  of  St.  Louis,  at  the  age  of  twentytwo,  I  was 
fairly  prosperous  as  a  working  newspaper  man's  prosper 
ity  goes,  and  in  a  position  to  get  or  make  or  even  keep 


248  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

a  place  not  only  for  myself  but  for  various  others — such 
friends,  for  instance,  as  I  chose  to  aid.  I  do  not  record 
this  boastfully.  I  was  a  ha  rum  scarum  youth,  who  was 
fairly  well  liked  by  his  elders,  but  with  no  least  faculty, 
apparently,  of  taking  care  of  his  own  interests.  From 
Chicago  one  of  those  fine  days  blew  a  young  newspaper 
man  whom  I  had  known  and  liked  up  there.  He  was 
not  a  very  good  newspaper  man,  humdrum  and  good 
natured,  but  a  veritable  satellite  of  mine.  He  wanted  me 
to  get  him  a  place  and  I  did.  Then  he  wanted  counsel  as 
to  whether  he  should  get  married,  and  I  aided  and  abetted 
him  in  that.  Then  he  lost  his  job  through  his  inability  to 
imagine  something  properly  one  night,  and  I  had  to  get 
him  another  one.  Then  he  began  to  dream  of  running 
a  country  paper  with  me  as  a  fellow  aspirer  to  rural 
honors  and  emoluments,  and  if  you  will  believe  me,  so 
rackbrained  was  I,  and  so  restless  and  uncertain  as  to  my 
proper  future,  that  I  listened  to  him  with  willing  ears. 
Yes,  I  had  some  vague,  impossible  idea  of  being  first 
State  Assemblyman  Dreiser  of  some  rural  region,  and 
then,  perchance,  State  Senator  Dreiser,  and  then  Con 
gressman  Dreiser,  or  Governor  Dreiser,  if  you  please, 
and  all  at  once,  owing  to  my  amazing  facility  and  savoir 
faire,  and  my  clear  understanding  of  the  rights,  priv 
ileges,  duties  and  emoluments  of  private  citizens,  and  of 
public  officers,  and  because  of  my  deep  and  abiding  in 
terest  in  the  welfare  of  the  nation — President  Dreiser — 
the  distinguished  son  of  the  state  of  Indiana,  or  Ohio,  or 
Michigan,  or  wherever  I  happened  to  bestow  myself. 

I  had  only  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  all  told  in 
the  world  at  the  time — but  somehow  money  didn't  seem 
so  very  important.  Perhaps  that  was  why  I  listened  to 
him.  Anyhow,  he  hailed  from  this  northern  section  of 
Ohio.  His  father  lived  just  outside  of  the  village  of 
Grand  Rapids  (Ohio,  not  Michigan),  and  between  there 
and  a  town  called  Bowling  Green,  which  we  were  now 
approaching,  lay  the  region  which  we  were  to  improve 
with  our  efforts  and  presence. 

Looking  at  the  country  now,  and  remembering  it  as  it 


WHEN  HOPE  HOPPED  HIGH  249 

was  then,  I  could  see  little,  if  any,  change.  Oh,  yes — 
one.  At  that  time  it  was  dotted  on  every  hand  with  tall 
skeleton  derricks  for  driving  oil  wells.  The  farming 
world  was  crazy  about  oil  wells,  believing  them  to  be  the 
open  sesame  to  a  world  of  luxury  and  every  blessed  thing 
which  they  happened  to  desire.  And  every  man  who 
owned  so  much  as  a  foot  of  land  was  sinking  an  oil  well 
on  it.  The  spectacle  which  I  beheld  when  I  first  ventured 
into  this  region  was  one  to  stir  the  soul  of  avarice,  if 
not  of  oil.  As  far  as  the  eye  could  see,  the  still  wintry 
fields  were  dotted  with  these  gaunt  structures  standing 
up  naked  and  cold — a  more  or  less  unsatisfactory  sight. 
I  remember  asking  myself  rather  ruefully  why  it  was 
that  I  couldn't  own  an  oil  well  and  be  happy.  Now  when 
I  entered  this  region  again  all  these  derricks  had  dis 
appeared,  giving  place  to  small  dummy  engines,  or  some 
automatic  arrangement  lying  close  to  the  ground,  and 
controlled  from  afar,  by  which  the  oil  pumping  was  done. 
These  engines  were  very  dirty,  but  fortunately  incon 
spicuous.  And  apparently  nearly  all  the  wells  which  I 
had  seen  being  dug  in  1893  had  proved  successful.  In 
every  field  was  at  least  one  of  these  pumping  devices,  and 
sometimes  two  and  three,  all  in  active  working  order. 
They  looked  odd  in  fields  of  corn  and  wheat.  But  where 
were  the  palaces  of  great  beauty  which  the  farmers  of 
1893  expected  if  they  struck  oil?  I  saw  none;  merely 
many  fairly  comfortable,  and  I  trust  happy,  homes. 

But  to  return  to  my  venture  into  this  region.  The  most 
disturbing  thing  about  it,  as  I  look  back  on  it  now,  is  that 
it  shows  me  how  nebulous  and  impractical  I  was  at  that 
time.  Clearly  I  had  had  a  sharp  desire  to  be  rich  and 
famous,  without  any  understanding  of  how  to  achieve 
these  terms  of  comfort.  On  the  other  hand,  I  had  the 
true  spirit  of  adventure,  else  I  would  never  have  dropped 
so  comfortable  a  berth  as  I  had,  where  I  was  well  liked, 
to  come  up  here  where  I  knew  nothing  of  what  the  future 
held  in  store.  Great  dreams  invariably  shoot  past  the 
possibilities  of  life. 

Those  cold,  snowy,  silent  streets,   those  small  bleak 


250  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

homes,  shut  in  from  the  February  or  March  cold,  with 
all  the  force  of  their  country  life  centered  around  the 
parlor  stove!  H ,  my  fellow  adventurer,  had  pre 
ceded  me,  occupying  with  his  wife  a  comfortable  portion 
of  his  father's  home,  and  it  was  he  who  met  me  at  the 
train.  He  could  live  here  comfortably  and  indefinitely, 
and  think  nothing  of  it.  He  was  home.  After  a  single 
day's  investigation,  I  now  saw  that  there  was  nothing  to 
his  proposition  as  far  as  I  or  Grand  Rapids  was  con 
cerned — not  a  thing.  The  paper  which  he  had  outlined 
to  me  as  having  a  working  circulation  of  sixteen  hundred 
and  advertising  to  the  value  of  a  thousand  or  more  had 
really  nothing  at  all.  The  county,  which  had  only  per 
haps  10,000  population,  had  already  more  papers  than 
it  could  support.  The  last  editor  had  decamped,  leaving 
a  novice  who  worked  for  the  leading  druggist,  owner  of 
the  printing  press  and  other  materials  of  construction,  to 
potter  about,  endeavoring  to  explain  what  was  useless  to 
explain.  And  I  had  thrown  up  a  good  position  to  pursue 
a  chimera. 

But  in  spite  of  this,  H wished  to  see  all  the  lead 
ing  citizens  to  discover  what  encouragement  they  would 
offer  to  two  aspiring  souls  like  ourselves !  I  can  see  them 
yet — one  a  tall,  bony  man  of  a  ministerial  cast  of  coun 
tenance.  He  was  the  druggist,  and  by  the  same  token  one 
of  several  doctors  living  here.  There  was  a  short,  fat, 
fussy  man,  who  ran  the  principal  feed  and  livery  stable. 
He  had  advertised  occasionally  in  other  days.  Then 
there  were  the  local  banker  and  four  or  five  others,  all  of 
them  meager,  unimportant  intellects. 

They  looked  us  over  as  if  we  were  adventurers  from 
Mars.  They  weren't  sure  whether  they  needed  a  news 
paper  here  or  not.  I  agree  now  that  they  did  not.  They 
talked  about  small  advertisements  which  they  might  or 
might  not  run,  but  which  they  were  certain  had  never 
paid  when  they  did — advertisements  which  they  had 
placed  as  a  favor  to  the  former  editor  or  editors.  In 
addition,  they  wanted  assurances  as  to  how  the  paper 
would  be  run  and  whether  we  were  good,  moral  boys  and 


WHEN  HOPE  HOPPED  HIGH  251 

whether  we  would  work  hard  for  the  interests  of  the  town 
and  against  certain  unsatisfactory  elements.  It  was  amaz 
ing.  Oh,  yes,  the  paper  had  to  be  Republican  in  politics. 

"No,  no,  no,"  I  finally  said  to  H ,  in  a  spirit  of 

dissatisfaction  and  at  the  end  of  a  long,  cold,  windy  day. 
We  had  walked  out  the  country  road  toward  his  house 
and  I  had  stopped  to  stare  at  an  array  of  crows  occupying 
a  bleak  woodpatch,  and  at  the  red  sun,  smiling  over  a 
floor  of  white.  "There's  nothing  in  this.  It  would  set 
me  crazy.  It's  a  wild  goose  chase.  Is  there  anything 
else  around  here,  or  shall  I  skip  out  tonight?" 

He  wanted  me  to  stay  and  visit  Bowling  Green,  a  town 
near  at  hand.  (This  was  the  one  we  were  now  approach 
ing.)  There  was  another  newspaper  there  for  sale  on 
easy  terms.  I  agreed  after  some  coaxing,  and,  having 
lingered  three  days  to  secure  suitable  roads — the  distance 
was  twentyfive  miles — we  drove  over.  That  was  the 
time  I  saw  the  gas  wells.  It  was  a  better  place  than 
Grand  Rapids,  but  the  price  of  the  paper,  when  we 
reached  there,  was  much  more  than  we  could  pay.  I 
think  we  figured,  between  us,  that  we  could  put  down  two 
hundred  dollars  and  the  owners  wanted  five  hundred, 
with  the  balance  on  mortgage  and  a  total  selling  price  of 
eight  thousand.  So  that  dream  went  glimmering.  In 
the  meanwhile,  I  browsed  about  studying  country  life, 

admiring  the  Maumee  River  at  Grand  Rapids  (H 's 

home  faced  it  from  a  beautiful  rise).  Then  one  fine 
spring  day  the  sun  rose  on  fields  from  which  the  snow 
had  suddenly  melted,  and  I  felt  that  I  must  be  off.  I 
went,  as  I  have  said,  to  Toledo  first.  Here  I  encountered 
the  youth  to  whom  I  have  frequently  referred  and  with 
whom  I  was  destined  to  lead  a  curious  career. 

But  now  that  I  am  upon  the  subject,  perhaps  I  might 
as  well  include  the  story  of  my  journey  into  Toledo, 
where  was  a  principal  paper  called  the  Blade  with  which 
I  wished  to  connect  myself,  if  possible.  The  place  only 
had  a  hundred  thousand  at  the  time,  and  I  did  not  think 
it  worth  the  remaining  years  of  my  life,  but  I  thought  it 
might  be  good  for  a  little  while — say  six  months.  Al- 


252  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

though  I  was  considered  (I  am  merely  quoting  others) 
an  exceptional  newspaper  man,  I  did  not  know  what  I 
wanted  to  be.  Already  the  newspaper  profession  was 
boring  me.  It  seemed  a  hopeless,  unremunerative,  more 
or  less  degrading  form  of  work,  and  yet  I  could  think  of 
nothing  else  to  do.  Apparently  I  had  no  other  talent. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  first  morning  I  went  into  To 
ledo.  The  train  followed  the  bank  of  a  canal  and  ran 
between  that  canal  and  the  Maumee  River.  The  snow 
which  had  troubled  us  so  much  a  day  or  two  before  had 
gone  off,  and  it  was  as  bright  and  encouraging  as  one 
might  wish.  I  was  particularly  elated  by  the  natural  as 
pects  of  this  region,  for  the  Maumee  River,  beginning  at 
Fort  Wayne,  Indiana,  and  flowing  northeastward,  makes 
a  peculiarly  attractive  scenic  diversion.  It  is  a  beautiful 
stream,  with  gently  sloping  banks  on  either  hand,  and  in 
places  rapids  and  even  slight  falls.  At  Grand  Rapids 
and  farther  along  it  broadened  out  into  something  essen 
tially  romantic  to  look  upon,  and  Toledo  itself,  when  I 
reached  it,  was  so  clean  and  new  and  industrious — with- 
out  all  the  depressing  areas  of  factory  and  tenement  life 
which  lowers  the  charm  of  some  cities.  It  seemed  to  me 
as  I  looked  at  it  this  Spring  morning  as  if  life  must 
be  better  here  than  in  cities  older,  or  at  least  greater — 
cities  like  St.  Louis  and  Chicago,  where  so  much  of  the 
oppressive  struggle  for  existence  had  already  manifested 
itself.  And  yet  I  knew  I  liked  those  cities  better.  Be 
that  as  it  may,  it  was  a  happy  prospect  which  I  contem 
plated,  and  I  sought  out  the  office  of  the  Blade  with  the 
air  of  one  who  is  certain  of  his  powers  and  not  likely  to 
be  daunted  by  mere  outward  circumstances. 

I  have  always  felt  of  life  that  it  is  more  fortuitous 
than  anything  else.  People  strive  so  mightily  to  do 
things — to  arrange  life  according  to  some  scheme  of  their 
own — but  little,  if  anything,  comes  of  it  in  most  cases. 
Children  are  taught  by  their  parents  that  they  must  be 
this,  that,  or  the  other  to  get  along — economical,  indus 
trious,  sober,  truthful  and  the  like — and  what  comes  of 
it?  Unless  they  are  peculiarly  talented  and  able  to  use 


WHEN  HOPE  HOPPED  HIGH  253 

life  in  a  direct  and  forceful  way — unless  they  have  quali 
ties  or  charms  which  draw  life  to  them,  or  compel  life  to 
come,  willy-nilly,  they  are  used  and  then  discarded.  A 
profound  schooling  in  manners,  morals  and  every  other 
virtue  and  pleasantry  will  not  make  up  for  lack  of  looks 
in  a  girl.  Honesty,  sobriety,  industry,  and  even  other 
solemn  virtues,  will  not  raise  a  lad  to  a  seat  of  dignity. 
Life  is  above  these  petty  rules,  however  essential  they 
may  be  to  the  strong  in  ruling  the  weak,  or  to  a  state 
or  nation  in  the  task  of  keeping  itself  in  order.  We  suc 
ceed  or  fail  not  by  the  socalled  virtues  or  their  absence, 
but  by  something  more  or  less  than  these  things.  All 
good  things  are  gifts — beauty,  strength,  grace,  mag 
netism,  swiftness  and  subtlety  of  mind,  the  urge  or  com 
pulsion  to  do.  Taking  thought  will  not  bring  them  to 
anyone.  Effort  never  avails  save  by  grace  or  luck  or 
something  else.  The  illusion  of  the  self  made  is  one  of 
the  greatest  of  all. 

Here  in  Toledo  I  came  upon  one  of  the  happiest  illus 
trations  of  this.  In  the  office  of  the  Blade  in  the  city  edi 
torial  room,  sat  a  young  man  as  city  editor  who  was 
destined  to  take  a  definite  and  inspiriting  part  in  my  life. 
He  was  small,  very  much  smaller  than  myself,  plump, 
rosy  cheeked,  with  a  complexion  of  milk  and  cream,  soft 
light  brown  hair,  a  clear,  observing  blue  eye.  Without 
effort  you  could  detect  the  speculative  thinker  and 
dreamer.  In  the  role  of  city  editor  of  a  western  manu 
facturing  town  paper,  one  must  have  the  air,  if  not  the 
substance,  of  commercial  understanding  and  ability  (ex 
ecutive  control  and  all  that),  and  so  in  this  instance,  my 
young  city  editor  seemed  to  breathe  a  determination  to 
be  very  executive  and  forceful. 

"You're  a  St.  Louis  newspaper  man,  eh?"  he  said, 
estimating  me  casually  and  in  a  glance.  "Never  worked 
in  a  town  of  this  size  though?  Well,  the  conditions  are 
very  different.  We  pay  much  more  attention  to  small 
items — make  a  good  deal  out  of  nothing,"  he  smiled. 
"But  there  isn't  a  thing  that  I  can  see  anyhow.  Nothing 
much  beyond  a  three  or  four  day  job,  which  you  wouldn't 


254  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

want,  I'm  sure.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there's  a  street  car 
strike  on — you  may  have  noticed  it — and  I  could  use  a 
man  who  would  have  nerve  enough  to  ride  round  on  the 
cars  which  the  company  is  attempting  to  run  and  report 
how  things  are.  But  I'll  tell  you  frankly,  it's  dangerous. 
You  may  be  shot  or  hit  with  a  brick." 

"Yes,"  I  said,  smiling  and  thinking  of  my  need  of 
experience  and  cash.  "Just  how  many  days'  work  would 
you  guarantee  me,  if  any?" 

"Well,  four.     I  could  guarantee  you  that  many." 

He  looked  at  me  in  a  mock  serious  and  yet  approving 
way.  I  could  see  that  he  was  attracted  to  me — fate  only 
knows  why.  Something  about  me  (as  he  told  me  later) 
affected  him  vigorously.  He  could  not,  he  admitted,  get 
me  out  of  his  mind.  He  was  slightly  ashamed  of  offering 
me  so  wretched  a  task,  and  yet  urged  by  the  necessity  of 
making  a  showing  in  the  face  of  crisis.  He,  too,  was 
comparatively  new  to  his  task. 

I  will  not  go  into  this  story  further  than  to  say  that 
it  resulted  in  an  enduring  and  yet  stormy  and  disillusion 
ing  friendship.  If  he  had  been  a  girl  he  would  have  mar 
ried  me,  of  course.  It  would  have  been  inevitable,  even 
though  he  was  already  married,  as  he  was.  That  other 
marriage  would  have  been  broken  up.  We  were  intel 
lectual  affinities,  as  it  were.  Our  dreams  were  practically 
identical,  approaching  them  though  we  were,  at  different 
angles.  He  was  more  the  sentimentalist  in  thought, 
though  the  realist  in  action;  I  the  realist  in  thought,  and 
sentimentalist  in  action.  He  kept  looking  at  me  and  that 
same  morning,  when  having  ridden  about  over  all  the 
short  lines  unharmed  and  made  up  a  dramatic  story, 
and  when,  in  addition,  for  a  "Romance  Column"  which 
the  paper  ran,  I  had  written  one  or  two  brief  descrip 
tions  of  farm  life  about  Toledo,  he  came  over  to  tell  me 
that  he  was  impressed.  My  descriptions  were  beautiful, 
he  said. 

We  went  out  to  lunch,  and  stayed  nearly  three  hours. 
He  took  me  out  to  dinner.  Though  he  was  newly  mar 
ried  and  his  delightful  young  wife  was  awaiting  him  in 


WHEN  HOPE  HOPPED  HIGH  255 

their  home  a  few  miles  out  of  the  city,  duty  compelled  him 
to  stay  in  town.  Damon  had  met  Pythias — Gawayne, 
Ivaine.  We  talked  and  talked  and  talked.  He  had 
worked  in  Chicago;  so  had  I.  He  had  known  various 
newspaper  geniuses  there — so  had  I.  He  had  dreams 
of  becoming  a  poet  and  novelist — I  of  becoming  a  play 
wright.  Before  the  second  day  had  gone,  a  book  of 
fairytales  and  some  poems  he  had  completed  and  was 
publishing  locally  had  been  shown  me.  Under  the  action 
of  our  joint  chemistries  I  was  magically  impressed.  I 
became  enamoured  of  him — the  victim  of  a  delightful 
illusion — one  of  the  most  perfect  I  have  ever  entertained. 

Because  he  was  so  fond  of  me,  so  strikingly  adoring, 
he  wanted  me  to  stay  on.  There  was  no  immediate  place, 
and  he  could  not  make  one  for  me  at  once,  but  would 
I  not  wait  until  an  opening  might  come?  Or  better  yet — 
would  I  not  wander  on  toward  Cleveland  and  Buffalo, 
working  at  what  I  chose,  and  then,  if  a  place  opened, 
come  back?  He  would  telegraph  me  (as  he  subsequently 
did  at  Pittsburg).  Meanwhile  we  reveled  in  that  won 
derful  possession — intellectual  affection — a  passionate  in 
tellectual  rapprochement,  in  youth.  I  thought  he  was 
beautiful,  great,  perfect.  He  thought — well,  I  have 
heard  him  tell  in  after  years  what  he  thought.  Even  now, 
at  times,  he  fixes  me  with  hungry,  welcoming  eyes. 

Alas,  alas,  for  the  dreams  and  the  perfections  which 
never  stay! 


CHAPTER    XXXII 

THE   FRONTIER   OF   INDIANA 

To  me,  therefore,  this  region  was  holy  Ganges — 
Mecca,  Medina — the  blessed  isles  of  the  West.  In  ap 
proaching  Bowling  Green,  Ohio,  I  was  saying  to  myself 

how  strange  it  will  be  to  see  H again,  should  he 

chance  to  be  there !  What  an  interesting  talk  I  will  have 
with  him !  And  after  Bowling  Green  how  interesting  to 
pass  through  Grand  Rapids,  even  though  there  was  not 
a  soul  whom  I  would  wish  to  greet  again !  Toledo  was 
too  far  north  to  bother  about. 

When  we  entered  Bowling  Green,  however,  by  a 
smooth  macadam  road  under  a  blazing  sun,  it  was  really 
not  interesting  at  all;  indeed  it  was  most  disappointing. 
The  houses  were  small  and  low  and  everything  was  still, 
and  after  one  sees  town  after  town  for  eight  hundred  or 
a  thousand  miles,  all  more  or  less  alike,  one  town  must 
be  different  and  possessed  of  some  intrinsic  merit  not 
previously  encountered  to  attract  attention. 

I  persuaded  Franklin  to  stop  at  the  office  of  the  prin 
cipal  newspaper,  in  order  that  I  might  make  inquiry  as 

to  the  present  whereabouts  of  H .  He  had  written 

me,  about  four  years  before,  to  say  that  he  was  con 
nected  with  a  paper  here.  He  wanted  me  to  teach 
him  how  to  write  short  stories !  It  was  a  dull  room  or 
store,  facing  the  principal  street,  like  a  bank.  In  it  were 
a  young,  reporterish  looking  boy,  very  trig  and  brisk 
and  curious  as  to  his  glance,  and  a  middle  aged  man, 
bald,  red  faced,  roundly  constructed  like  a  pigeon,  and 
about  as  active. 

"Do  you  happen  to  recall  a  man  by  the  name  of  H 

who  used  to  work  here  in  Bowling  Green?"  I  inquired 
of  the  elder,  not  willing  to  believe  that  he  had  controlled 

256 


THE  FRONTIER  OF  INDIANA  257 

a  paper,  though  I  had  understood  from  someone  that 
he  had. 

"B H ?"  he  replied,  looking  me  over. 

"Yes,  that's  the  man." 

"He  did  work  here  on  the  other  paper  for  a  while," 
he  replied  with  what  seemed  to  me  a  faint  look  of  con 
tempt,  though  it  may  not  have  been.  "He  hasn't  been  here 
for  four  or  five  years  at  the  least.  He's  up  in  Michigan 
now,  I  believe — Battle  Creek,  or  Sheboygan,  or  some 
such  place  as  that.  They  might  tell  you  over  at  the  other 
office."  He  waved  his  hand  toward  some  outside  insti 
tution — the  other  paper. 

"You  didn't  happen  to  know  him  personally,  I  pre 
sume?" 

"No,  I  saw  him  a  few  times.  He  was  their  general 
utility  man,  I  believe." 

I  went  out,  uncertain  whether  to  bother  any  more  or 
not.  Twentythree  years  is  a  long  time.  I  had  not  seen 
him  in  all  of  that.  I  started  to  walk  toward  the  other 
newspaper  office,  but  the  sight  of  the  bare  street,  with  a 
buggy  or  two  and  an  automobile,  and  the  low,  quiet  store 
buildings,  deterred  me. 

"What's  the  use?"  I  asked  myself.  "This  is  a  stale, 
impossible  atmosphere.  There  isn't  an  idea  above  hay 
and  feed  in  the  whole  place." 

I  climbed  back  in  the  car  and  we  fled. 

It  was  not  much  better  for  some  distance  beyond  here 
until  we  began  to  draw  near  Napoleon,  Ohio.  The  coun 
try  for  at  least  twenty  miles  was  dreadfully  flat  and  un 
interesting — houses  with  low  fences  and  prominent 
chicken  coops,  orchards  laden  with  apples  of  a  still  green 
ish  yellow  color,  fields  of  yellowing  wheat  or  green  corn 
— oh,  so  very  flat.  Not  a  spire  of  an  interesting  church 
anywhere,  not  a  respectable  piece  of  architecture,  noth 
ing.  Outside  of  one  town,  where  we  stopped  for  a  glass 
of  water,  we  did  encounter  a  brick  and  plaster  mauso 
leum — the  adjunct,  I  believe,  of  a  crematory — set  down 
at  the  junction  of  two  macadam  crossroads,  and  enclosed 
by  a  most  offensive  wooden  fence.  Although  there  were 


258  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

some  wide  fields  and  some  patches  of  woods,  which  might 
have  been  utilized  to  give  an  institution  of  this  kind  a 
little  grace — it  had  none,  not  the  faintest  trace.  The 
ground  was  grassless,  or  only  patched  in  spots  with  it. 
The  stained  glass  windows  which  ornamented  its  four 
sides  were  botches — done  by  some  wholesale  stained- 
glass  window  company,  very  likely  of  Peoria,  Illinois. 

"Kind  heaven,"  I  exclaimed,  on  sight  of  it,  "what  is 
the  matter  with  a  country  where  such  things  can  be? 
What's  the  trouble  with  their  minds  anyhow?  What  a 
deadly  yearning  for  the  commonplace  and  crude  and  of 
fensive  possesses  them!" 

"Yes,  and  they  slave  to  do  it,"  replied  Franklin.  "You 
haven't  any  idea  how  people  will  toil  for  years  under  a 
hot  sun  or  in  cold  or  snow  to  be  able  to  build  a  thing  like 
that" — and  he  pointed  to  a  new  yellow  house  of  the  most 
repulsive  design. 

"You're  right!  You're  right!"  I  replied. 

"This  country  isn't  so  bad,  perhaps,  but  the  intellec 
tual  or  temperamental  condition  of  the  people  spoils  it — 
their  point  of  view.  I  feel  a  kind  of  chicken  raising  mind 
to  be  dominant  here.  If  another  kind  of  creature  lived 
on  this  soil  it  would  be  lovely,  I'm  sure  of  it." 

We  sank  into  a  deep  silence.  The  car  raced  on.  Once 
Franklin,  seeing  some  fine  apples  on  a  tree,  stopped  the 
car,  climbed  a  fence,  and  helped  himself  to  a  dozen. 
They  were  better  to  look  at  than  to  eat. 

It  was  only  when  we  reached  the  region  of  the  Maumee 
that  things  began  to  brighten  up  again.  We  were  enter 
ing  a  much  fairer  land — a  region  extending  from  the 
Maumee  here  at  Grand  Rapids,  Ohio,  to  Fort  Wayne, 
Warsaw  and  North  Manchester,  Indiana,  and  indeed, 
nearly  all  the  rest  of  our  journey.  We  were  leaving  the 
manufacturing  section  of  Ohio  and  the  East,  and  entering 
the  grain  growing,  rural  life  loving  middle  West.  The 
Maumee,  when  we  reached  it  again,  revivified  all  my 
earliest  and  best  impressions  of  it.  It  was  a  beautiful 
stream,  dimpling  smoothly  between  raised  banks  of  dark 
earth  and  fringed  for  the  most  of  the  way  by  lines  of 


THE  FRONTIER  OF  INDIANA  259 

poplar,  willow,  and  sycamore.  Great  patches  of  the 
parasite  gold  thread  flourished  here — more  gold  thread 
than  I  ever  saw  in  my  life  before — looking  like  flames  of 
light  on  a  grey  day,  and  covering  whole  small  islands  and 
steep  banks  for  distances  of  thirty  or  forty  feet  or  more 
at  a  stretch.  We  might  have  ridden  into  and  through 
Grand  Rapids,  but  I  thought  it  scarcely  worth  while. 
What  would  I  see  anyhow?  Another  town  like  Bowling 

Green,  only  smaller,  and  the  farm  of  H 's  parents, 

perhaps,  if  I  could  find  it.  All  this  would  take  time,  and 
would  it  be  worth  while?  I  decided  not.  The  Maumee, 
once  we  began  to  skirt  its  banks,  was  so  poetic  that  I 
knew  it  could  not  be  better  nor  more  reminiscent  of  those 
older  days,  even  though  I  followed  it  into  Toledo. 

But  truly,  this  section,  now  that  we  were  out  of  the 
cruder,  coarser  manufacturing  and  farming  region  which 
lay  to  the  east  of  it,  appealed  to  me  mightily.  I  was  begin 
ning  to  feel  as  if  I  were  in  good  company  again — better 
company  than  we  had  been  in  for  some  time.  Perhaps 
the  people  were  not  so  pushing,  so  manufacturing, — 
for  which  heaven  be  praised.  We  encountered  three 
towns,  Napoleon,  Defiance  and  Hicksville,  before  night 
fall,  which  revived  all  the  happiest  days  and  ideals  of  my 
youth.  Indeed,  Napoleon  was  Warsaw  over  again,  with 
its  stone  and  red  brick  courthouse, — surmounted  by  a 
statute  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte  (gosh!) — and  its  O.  N. 
G.  Armory,  and  its  pretty  red  brick  Methodist  and  brown 
stone  Presbyterian  Churches  and  its  iron  bridges  over 
the  Maumee.  The  river  here  was  as  wide  and  shallow 
a  thing  as  had  been  the  Tippecanoe  at  home,  at  its  best, 
with  a  few  small  boat  houses  at  one  place,  and  lawns  or 
gardens  which  came  down  to  the  water's  edge  at  others. 
The  principal  street  was  crowded  with  ramshackle  bug 
gies  and  very  good  automobiles  (exceedingly  fancy  ones, 
in  many  instances)  and  farmers  and  idlers  in  patched 
brown  coats  and  baggy,  shapeless  trousers — delightful 
pictures,  every  one  of  them.  We  eventually  agreed  to 
stop,  and  got  out  and  hung  about,  while  Speed  went  back 


260  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

to  a  garage  which  we  had  seen  and  treated  himself  to 
oil  and  gas. 

Truly,  if  I  were  a  poet,  I  would  now  attempt  a  "Ru- 
baiyat  of  a  Middle  West  Town,"  or  I  would  compose 
"The  Ballad  of  Napoleon,  Ohio,"  or  "Verses  on  Hicks- 
ville,"  or  "Rondels  of  Warsaw."  You  have  no  idea  what 
a  charm  these  places  have — what  a  song  they  sing — to 
one  who  has  ever  been  of  them  and  then  gone  out  into  the 
world  and  changed  and  cannot  see  life  any  more  through 
the  medium — the  stained  glass  medium,  if  you  will — of 
the  time  and  the  mood  which  we  call  our  youth. 

Here,  as  at  Warsaw,  the  railroad  station  of  an  older 
day  was  hidden  away  in  a  side  street,  where  possibly  six 
trains  a  day  may  have  stopped.  At  Warsaw  we  had  the 
village  bus,  which  took  passengers  to  the  one  hotel. 
Here  they  had  a  Ford,  by  heck ! 

"None  o'  your  cheap  busses  for  us  any  more !" 

And  in  the  plain  red  brick  business  street  was  this 
motley  and  yet  charming  collection  of  people.  I  have 
indicated  farmers  and  farmers*  wives  in  (the  equivalent 
of)  homespun  and  linen.  Behold,  now,  your  town  dandy, 
bustling  into  the  bank  or  bookstore  at  two  P.  M.  of  this 
fine  afternoon,  a  veritable  village  Beau  Brummell,  very 
conscious  of  his  charms.  He  is  between  twentyone  and 
twentythree,  and  very  likely  papar  owns  the  book  or  the 
clothing  store  and  is  proud  of  his  son's  appearance.  In 
my  day  son  would  have  had  a  smart  runabout,  with  red 
or  yellow  wheels,  in  which  he  would  have  arrived,  pick 
ing  up  a  very  pretty  girl  by  the  way.  Now  he  has  an 
automobile — even  if  it  is  only  a  Buick — and  he  feels 
himself  to  be  the  most  perfect  of  youths., 

And  here  come  three  girls,  arm  in  arm,  village  belles, 
so  pretty  in  their  bright,  summery  washdresses.  Do  you 
think  New  York  can  teach  them  anything — or  Paris? 
Tush !  Not  so  fast.  Look  at  our  skirts,  scarcely  below 
the  knees,  with  pointed  ruffles,  and  flaring  flounces,  and 
our  bright  grey  kid  slippers,  and  the  delicate  frills  about 
our  necks,  and  the  soft  bloomy  gaiety  of  our  "sport" 
hats.  New  York  teach  us  anything?  We  teach  New 


THE  FRONTIER  OF  INDIANA  261 

York,  rather!  We  are  down  for  mail,  or  stationery,  or 
an  ice  cream  soda,  and  to  see  and  be  seen.  Perhaps  Beau 
Brummell  will  drive  us  home  in  his  car,  or  we  may  refuse 
and  just  laugh  at  him. 

And,  if  you  please,  here  is  one  of  the  town's  young 
scarlet  women.  No  companionship  for  her.  She  is 
dressed  like  the  others,  only  more  so,  but  to  emphasize 
the  difference  she  is  rouged  as  to  cheeks  and  lips.  Those 
eager,  seeking  eyes !  No  woman  will  openly  look  at  her, 
nor  any  girl.  But  the  men — these  farmers  and  lawyers 
and  town  politicians !  Which  one  of  them  will  seek  her 
out  first  tonight,  do  you  suppose — the  lawyer,  the  doctor, 
or  the  storekeeper? 

How  good  it  all  tasted  after  New  York!  And  what  a  i 
spell  it  cast.  I  can  scarcely  make  you  understand,  I  fear.  \ 
Indiana  is  a  world  all  unto  itself,  and  this  extreme  west 
ern  portion  of  Ohio  is  a  part  of  it,  not  by  official,  but 
rather  by  natural  arrangement.  The  air  felt  different — 
the  sky  and  trees  and  streets  here  were  sweeter.  They 
really  were.  The  intervening  years  frizzled  away  and 
once  more  I  saw  myself  quite  clearly  in  this  region,  with 
the  ideas  and  moods  of  my  youth  still  dominant.  I  was 
a  "kid"  again,  and  these  streets  and  stores  were  as  fa 
miliar  to  me  as  though  I  had  lived  in  them  all  my  life. 

Franklin  and  I  were  looking  in  at  the  window  of  the 
one  combined  music  and  piano  store,  to  see  what  they 
sold.  All  the  popular  songs  were  there — "I  Didn't 
Raise  My  Boy  To  Be  a  Soldier,"  "It's  a  Long,  Long  Way 
to  Tipperary,"  "He's  a  Devil  in  His  Own  Home  Town," 
and  others  such  as  "Goodbye,  Goodbye"  and  "Though 
We  Should  Never  Meet  Again."  As  I  looked  at  these 
things,  so  redolent  of  small  town  love  affairs  and  of  call 
ing  Wednesdays  and  Saturdays,  my  mind  went  back  to  all 
the  similar  matters  I  had  known  (not  my  own — I  never 
had  any)  and  the  condition  of  the  attractive  girl 
and  the  average  young  men  in  a  town  like  this.  How 
careful  is  their  upbringing — supposedly.  How  earnestly 
is  the  Sunday  School  and  the  precept  and  the  maxim  in 
voked,  and  how  persistently  so  many  of  them  go  their 


26z  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

own  way.  They  do  not  know  what  it  is  all  about,  all 
this  talk  about  religion  and  morality  and  duty.  In  their 
blood  is  a  certain  something  which  responds  to  the  light 
of  the  sun  and  the  blue  of  the  sky. 

Did  you  ever  read  "The  Ballad  of  the  Nun,"  by  John 
Davidson?  See  if  this  doesn't  suggest  what  I'm  talking 
about : 

"The  adventurous  sun  took  heaven  by  storm, 

Clouds  scattered  largesses  of  rain, 
The  sounding  cities,  rich  and  warm, 
Smouldered  and  glittered  in  the  plain. 

"Sometimes  it  was  a  wandering  wind, 

Sometimes  the  fragrance  of  the  pine, 
Sometimes  the  thought  how  others  sinned, 
That  turned  her  sweet  blood  into  wine. 

"Sometimes  she  heard  a  serenade, 

Complaining,  sweetly,  far  away. 
She  said,  'A  young  man  woos  a  maid'; 
And  dreamt  of  love  till  break  of  day. 

"For  still  night's  starry  scroll  unfurled, 
And  still  the  day  came  like  a  flood: 
It  was  the  greatness  of  the  world 
That  made  her  long  to  use  her  blood." 

Somehow  this  region  suggested  this  poem. 

But,  oh,  these  youngsters,  the  object  of  so  much  at 
tention  and  solicitation,  once  they  break  away  from  these 
sheltering  confines  and  precepts  and  enter  the  great  world 
outside — then  what?  Do  they  fulfil  any  or  all  of  the 
ideals  here  dreamed  for  them?  I  often  think  of  them  in 
the  springtime  going  forth  to  the  towns  and  the  cities, 
their  eyes  lit  with  the  sheen  of  new  life.  Ninetynine  per 
cent,  of  them,  as  you  and  I  know,  end  in  the  most  hum 
drum  fashion — not  desperately  or  dramatically — just 
humdrum  and  nothing  at  all.  Death,  disease,  the  dol 
drums,  small  jobs,  smaller  ideas  claim  the  majority  of 
them.  They  grow  up  thinking  that  to  be  a  drug  clerk  or 
a  dentist  or  a  shoe  dealer  is  a  great  thing.  Well,  maybe 
it  is — I  don't  know.  Spinoza  was  a  watch  repairer.  But 


THE  FRONTIER  OF  INDIANA  263 

in  youth  all  are  so  promising.  They  look  so  fine.  And 
in  a  small  town  like  this,  they  buzz  about  so  ecstatically, 
dreaming  and  planning. 

Seeing  young  boys  walking  through  the  streets  of  Na 
poleon  and  greeting  each  other  and  looking  at  the  girls — 
sidewise  or  with  a  debonair  security — brought  back  all 
the  boys  of  my  youth — all  those  who  had  been  so  prom 
ising  and  of  such  high  hopes  in  my  day.  Where  are 
they?  Well,  I  do  not  need  to  guess.  In  most  cases  I 
know.  They  would  make  gloomy  or  dull  tales.  Why 
bother?  In  spring  the  sun-god  breeds  a  new  crop.  Each 
autumn  a  new  class  enters  school.  Each  spring  time,  at 
school's  end,  a  group  break  away  to  go  to  the  city. 

Oh  bright  young  hopes !  Oh  visions !  visions  1 — mi 
rages  of  success  that  hang  so  alluringly  in  amethyst  skies  I 


CHAPTER   XXXIII 

ACROSS  THE  BORDER  OF  BOYLAND 

As  we  were  looking  in  this  same  window,  I  saw  a  man 
who  looked  exactly  like  a  man  who  used  to  be  a  lawyer 
politician  in  Warsaw,  a  small  town  lawyer  politician, 
such  as  you  find  in  every  town  of  the  kind,  pettifogging 
their  lives  away,  but  doing  it  unconsciously,  you  may  well 
believe.  This  one  had  that  peculiar  something  about  him 
which  marks  the  citizen  who  would  like  to  be  a  tribune 
of  the  people  but  lacks  the  capacity.  His  clothes,  nonde 
script,  durable  garments,  were  worn  with  the  air  of  one 
who  says  "It  is  good  to  dress  plainly.  That  is  what  my 
clients  expect.  Besides,  I  am  a  poor  man,  a  com 
moner,  and  proud  of  it.  I  know  that  my  constituents 
are  proud  of  it  too."  He  was  standing  at  the  foot  of  a 
law  office  stairs  from  which  quite  plainly  he  had  just 
descended.  This  was  not  quite  enough  to  confirm  me  in 
my  idea  that  he  was  a  country  lawyer — he  might  have 
been  a  client — but  I  went  further  and  asked  him,  in  a 
roundabout  way. 

"What  is  the  best  road  to  Defiance?" 

"Well,"  he  replied,  with  quite  an  air,  as  who  should 
say,  "now  here  is  a  pleasant  opportunity  and  diversion" 
— "There  are  two  of  them.  One  runs  to  the  north  of 
here,  a  hard,  macadam  road,  and  the  other  follows  the 
canal  and  the  river  most  of  the  way.  Personally,  I  would 
choose  the  canal.  It  isn't  quite  as  good  a  road,  but  the 
scenery  is  so  much  better.  You  have  the  river  nearly 
always  in  view  to  your  left.  To  the  right  the  scenery  is 
very  attractive."  He  raised  his  hand  in  a  slightly  ora 
torical  way. 

"By  the  way,  if  you  will  pardon  me,  you  are  a  lawyer, 
aren't  you?" 

264 


ACROSS  THE  BORDER  OF  BOYLAND       265 

"Well,  yes,  I  suppose  I  might  lay  claim  to  that  dis 
tinction,"  he  replied,  with  a  faintly  dry  smile.  "I  prac 
tice  law  here." 

His  coat  was  as  brown  as  old  brass,  nearly,  his  shoes 
thick  and  unpolished,  his  trousers  baggy.  The  soft  hat  he 
wore  was  pulled  down  indifferently  over  his  eyes. 

"I  ask,"  I  said,  "because  years  ago,  in  Warsaw,  In 
diana,  I  knew  a  lawyer  who  looked  very  much  like  you." 

"Indeed!  I've  never  been  in  Warsaw,  but  I've  heard 
of  it.  We  have  people  here  that  go  to  Winona  Lake. 
That's  right  near  there,  isn't  it?" 

"Practically  the  same  place,"  I  replied. 

"Well,  when  there  are  so  many  people  in  the  world, 
I  suppose  some  of  us  must  look  alike,"  he  continued. 

"Yes,"  I  replied,  "I've  met  my  counterpart  more  than 


once." 


He  began  to  expatiate  on  the  charms  of  this  region, 
but  seeing  that  we  were  plainly  rather  anxious  to  be  off, 
finally  concluded  and  let  us  go.  I  could  not  help  thinking, 
as  he  looked  after  us,  that  perhaps  he  would  like  very 
much  to  be  going  himself. 

From  here  on  the  scenery  was  so  simple  and  yet  so 
beautiful  that  it  was  like  a  dream — such  a  land  as  Gold 
smith  and  Gray  had  in  mind  when  they  wrote.  This 
little  stream,  the  Maumee,  was  delightful.  It  was,  as  he 
said,  paralleled  by  a  canal  nearly  all  the  way  into  De 
fiance  and  between  canal  and  river  were  many  little  sum 
mer  cottages,  quaint  and  idle  looking. 

It  had  become  excessively  hot,  so  much  so  that  I  felt 
that  now,  at  last,  I  was  beginning  to  sunburn  badly,  but 
in  spite  of  this  we  had  no  thought  of  putting  up  the  top 
or  of  seeking  shelter  by  lingering  in  the  shade.  It  was 
so  hot  that  I  perspired  sitting  in  the  car,  but  even  so  it 
was  too  lovely,  just  moving  along  with  what  breeze  the 
motion  provided.  At  Napoleon,  Booth  had  bought  a 
light  rubber  ball,  and  with  this,  a  few  miles  out,  we 
stopped  to  play.  The  automobile  gave  us  this  freedom 
to  seek  ideal  nooks  and  secluded  places,  and  thus  disport 
ourselves.  The  grass  and  trees  were  still  green,  not 


266  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

burned.  Wheat  fields  newly  shorn  or  still  standing  had 
that  radiant  gold  hue  which  so  pleases  the  eye  at  this 
season  of  the  year.  It  was  so  hot  and  still  that  even  all 
insects  seemed  to  have  taken  to  cover.  We  tossed  our 
ball  in  a  green  field  opposite  a  grove  and  looking  up  I 
could  see  a  lonely  buzzard  soaring  in  the  sky.  Truly 
this  is  my  own,  my  native  land,  I  said  to  myself.  I  have 
rejoiced  in  hundreds  of  days  just  like  this.  All  the  middle 
West  is  like  it — this  dry  heat,  these  clear  ^skies^ this 
sleepy  baking  atmosphere.  For  hundreds  of  miles,  in 
my  mind's  eye,  I  could  see  people  idling  on  their  porches 
or  under  their  trees,  making  the  best  of  it.  The  farmer's 
wain  was  creaking  along  in  the  sun,  the  cattle  were  idling 
in  the  water,  swishing  their  tails.  Girls  and  boys  home 
from  school  for  the  summer  were  idling  in  hammocks, 
reading  or  loafing.  Few  great  thoughts  or  turmoils  were 
breeding  in  this  region.  It  was  a  pleasant  land  of  drowsy 
mind  and  idle  eye — I  could  feel  it. 

By  winding  ways,  but  always  with  a  glimpse  of  this 
same  Maumee  or  its  parallel  canal,  we  arrived  at  De 
fiance,  and  a  little  while  later,  at  dusk,  at  Hicksville. 
Both  of  these  towns,  like  Napoleon,  were  of  the  tempera 
ment  of  which  I  am  most  fond — nebulous,  speculative, 
dreamy.  You  could  tell  by  their  very  looks  that  that 
definite  commercial  sense  which  was  so  marked  in  places 
farther  East  was  not  here  abounding.  They  were  still, 
as  at  Warsaw  in  my  day,  outside  the  keen,  shrill  whip  of 
things.  Everyone  was  not  strutting  around  with  the  all- 
too-evident  feeling  that  they  must  get  on.  (I  hate  greedy, 
commercial  people.)  Things  were  drifting  in  a  slow, 
romantic,  speculative  way.  Actually  I  said  to  Franklin, 
and  he  will  bear  witness  to  it,  that  now  we  were  in  the 
exact  atmosphere  which  was  most  grateful  to  me.  I 
looked  on  all  the  simple  little  streets,  the  one  and  a  half 
story  houses  with  sloping  roofs,  the  rows  of  good  trees 
and  unfenced  lawns,  and  wished  and  wished  and  wished. 
If  one  only  could  go  back — supposing  one  could — unreel 
like  a  film,  and  then  represent  one's  life  to  oneself.  What 
elisions  would  we  not  make,  and  what  extensions !  Some 


ACROSS  THE  BORDER  OF  BOYLAND       267 

incidents  I  would  make  so  much  more  perfect  than  they 
were — others  would  not  be  in  the  film  at  all. 

In  Defiance  we  all  indulged  in  shaves,  shoe  shines, 
drinks.  As  we  were  nearing  Hicksville  we  overtook  two 
farmers — evidently  brothers,  on  a  load  of  hay.  It  was 
so  beautiful,  the  charm  of  the  land  so  great,  that  we  were 
all  in  the  best  of  spirits.  To  the  south  of  us  was  a  little 
town  looking  like  one  of  those  villages  in  Holland  which 
you  see  over  a  wide  stretch  of  flat  land,  a  distant  church 
spire  or  windmill  being  the  most  conspicuous  object  any 
where.  Here  it  was  a  slate  church  steeple  and  a  red 
factory  chimney  that  stood  up  and  broke  the  sky  line.  It 
was  fairyland  with  a  red  sun,  just  sinking  below  the 
horizon,  the  trees  taking  on  a  smoky  harmony  in  the 
distance.  Spirals  of  gnats  were  in  the  air,  and  we  were 
on  one  of  those  wonderful  brick  roads  I  have  previously 
mentioned,  running  from  Defiance  to  Hicksville,  as 
smooth  and  picturesque  to  view  as  an  old  Dutch  tile  oven. 
Once  we  stopped  the  car  to  listen  to  the  evening  sounds, 
the  calls  of  farmers  after  pigs,  the  mooing  of  cows,  the 
rasping  of  guinea  hens,  and  the  last  faint  twitterings  of 
birds  and  chickens.  That  evening  hush,  with  a  tinge  of 
cool  in  the  air,  and  the  fragrant  emanation  of  the  soil 
and  trees,  was  upon  us.  It  needed  only  some  voice  singing 
somewhere,  I  thought,  or  the  sound  of  a  bell,  to  make  it 
complete.  And  even  those  were  added. 

As  we  were  idling  so,  these  two  farmers  came  along 
seated  on  a  load  of  hay,  making  a  truly  Ruysdaelish  pic 
ture  in  the  amethyst  light.  We  made  sure  to  greet  them. 

"What  town  is  that  one  there?"  Franklin  inquired, 
jovially. 

uSquiresburg,"  the  driver  replied,  grinning.  His 
brother  was  sitting  far  back  on  the  hay. 

"This  is  the  road  to  Hicksville  all  right,  isn't  it?"  I 
put  in. 

"Yes,  this  is  the  road,"  he  returned. 

"How  large  a  place  is  Squiresburg,  anyhow?"  I 
queried. 

"Oh,  seven  or  eight  hundred.1' 


268  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

"And  how  big  is  Hicksville?" 

"Oh,  two  or  three  thousand/' 

"But  Squiresburg' s  a  better  place  than  Hicksville," 
put  in  the  brother,  who  sat  behind,  chewing  a  stalk  of  hay 
and  smiling  broadly. 

"How's  that?"  inquired  Franklin. 

The  fellow's  manner  was  contagious. 

"Oh,  they're  not  as  hard  on  yuh  over  in  Squiresburg  as 
they  are  in  Hicksville."  He  munched  his  straw  sugges 
tively.  "Y'  kin  have  a  better  time  there." 

He  smiled  again,  most  elusively. 

"Oh,  this,"  said  Speed,  quickly,  forming  his  fingers  into 
a  cup  and  upending  it  before  his  lips. 

"That's  it,"  said  the  man.  "There  ain't  no  license  in 
Hicksville." 

"Alas!"  I  exclaimed.  "And  we're  bound  for  Hicks 
ville." 

"Well,  tain't  too  late,"  said  the  man  in  front. 
"There's  Squiresburg  right  over  there." 

"I'm  afraid,  I'm  afraid,"  I  sighed,  and  yet  the  thought 
came  to  me  what  a  fine  thing  it  would  be  to  turn  aside 
here  and  loaf  in  Squiresburg  in  one  of  its  loutish  country 
saloons,  say,  until  midnight,  seeing  what  might  happen. 
The  Dutch  inns  of  Jan  Steen  were  somehow  in  my  mind. 
But  just  the  same  we  didn't.  Those  things  must  be  taken 
on  the  jump.  An  opportunity  to  be  a  success  must  pro 
voke  a  spontaneous  burst  of  enthusiasm.  This  suggestion 
of  theirs,  if  it  appealed  to  the  others,  provoked  no  vocal 
acquiescence.  We  smiled  at  them  approvingly,  and  then 
rode  on,  only  to  comment  later  on  what  an  adventure  it 
might  have  proved — how  rurally  revealing. 

As  we  entered  Hicksville  the  lamps  were  being 
trimmed  in  a  cottage  or  two,  and  I  got  a  sense  once  more 
of  the  epic  that  life  is  day  after  day,  year  after  year,  cen 
tury  after  century,  cycle  after  cycle.  Poets  may  come 
and  poets  may  go,  a  Gray,  a  Goldsmith,  a  Burns  in  every 
generation,  but  this  thing  which  they  seek  to  interpret 
remains  forever.  A  Daubigny,  a  Corot,  a  Ruysdael,  a 
Vermeer,  all  American  born,  might  well  interpret  this 


w    Si 


0)     g 

K  .0 


ACROSS  THE  BORDER  OF  BOYLAND       269 

from  generation  to  generation.  It  would  never  tire. 
Passing  up  this  simple  village  street,  with  its  small  cot 
tages  on  every  hand,  I  could  not  help  thinking  of  what  a 
Monticelli  or  an  Inness  would  make  it.  The  shadows 
at  this  hour  were  somewhat  flamboyant,  like  those  in 
"The  Night  Watch."  A  sprinkling  of  people  in  the  two 
blocks  which  comprised  the  heart  of  things  was  Rem- 
brandtish  in  character.  Positively,  it  was  a  comfort  now 
to  know  that  Franklin  was  with  me,  and  that  subsequently 
he  would  register  this  or  something  like  it  either  in  pen 
and  ink  or  charcoal.  It  was  so  delightful  to  me  in  all  its 
rural  naivete  and  crudity,  that  I  wanted  to  sing  about  it 
or  sit  down  in  some  corner  somewhere  and  rhapsodize 
on  paper.  As  it  was,  after  exchanging  a  few  words  with 
a  farmer  who  wanted  to  hear  the  story  of  our  tour,  we 
went  to  look  for  some  picture  postcards  of  Hicksville, 
and  then  to  get  something  to  eat. 

It  would  seem  at  times  as  if  life  needed  not  so  much 
action  as  atmosphere — certainly  not  action  of  any  vigor 
ous  character — to  make  it  transcendently  pleasing.  In 
sofar  as  I  could  see,  there  was  no  action  in  this  town 
worthy  of  the  name.  Indeed,  the  people  seemed  to  me 
to  be  of  a  lackadaisical  turn,  rurals  of  a  very  simple  and 
unpretentious  character,  and,  for  the  most  part,  as  to 
the  men,  of  an  uncouth  and  workaday  aspect.  Many  of 
them  were  of  the  stuff  of  which  railroad  hands  are  made, 
only  here  with  the  farm  lands  and  the  isolation  of  country 
life  to  fall  back  on,  they  were  not  so  sophisticated. 

The  country  lunch  room  which  we  encountered  amused 
us  all  from  one  point  of  view  and  another.  It  was  so 
typically  your  male  center  of  rural  life,  swarming  with 
all  the  wits  and  wags  of  the  community  and  for  miles 
around.  Here  raw  yokels  and  noisy  pretenders  were  eat 
ing,  playing  cards,  pool,  billiards,  and  indulging  in  rural 
wit,  and  we  heard  all  the  standard  jests  of  country  life. 
I  gained  the  impression  that  the  place  had  once  been  a 
barroom  before  the  no-license  limitation  had  descended 
upon  it,  and  that  many  of  its  former  patrons  were  mak 
ing  the  best  of  the  new  conditions. 


270  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

And  here  it  was  that  for  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  tasted 
banana  pie.  Did  you  ever  eat  banana  pie?  Well!  The 
piece  I  had  here,  in  lieu  of  apple  for  which  I  inquired,  a 
quarter  section,  with  a  larger  layer  of  meringue  on  top, 
filled  a  long  felt  want  and  a  void.  It  made  up  for  the 
fact  that  I  had  to  content  myself  with  a  ham  sandwich 
and  two  fried  eggs.  It  was  thick — all  of  an  inch  and  a 
half — and  very  pastryish.  I  asked  the  clerk  (I  cannot 
conscientiously  call  him  a  waiter)  if  he  knew  how  to  make 
it,  but  he  did  not.  And  I  have  been  seeking  ever  since  for 
a  recipe  as  good  as  that  from  which  this  pie  was  made. 

Next  door  to  this  restaurant  was  the  Hotel  Swilley — 
mark  the  name — and  farther  up  the  street,  uMr.  and 
Mrs.  C.  J.  Holmes,  Undertaker."  In  the  one  drug  and 
book  and  stationery  store,  where  the  only  picture  post 
cards  we  could  find  were  of  the  depot  and  the  "residence 
of  N.  C.  Giffen,"  whoever  he  might  be,  several  very 
young  girls,  "downtown  for  a  soda,"  were  calling  up  some 
other  girl  at  home. 

"Hello,  Esther !  Is  this  you,  Esther?  Well,  don't  you 
know  who  this  is,  Esther?  Can't  you  tell?  Oh,  listen, 
Esther !  Listen  to  my  voice.  Now  can't  you  tell,  Esther? 
I  thought  you  could.  It's  Etta,  of  course.  Wait  a  min 
ute,  Esther,  Mabel  wants  to  speak  to  you.  Well,  good 
bye,  Esther."  (This  last  after  Mabel  had  spoken  to 
much  the  same  effect  as  Etta.) 

After  idling  about  in  what  seemed  an  almost  Saturday 
night  throng,  so  chipper  and  brisk  was  it,  we  made  our 
way  to  Fort  Wayne.  It  was  a  brisk,  cool  ride.  The 
moon  was  on  high,  very  clear,  and  a  light  wind  blowing 
which  made  overcoats  comfortable.  Just  outside  Hicks- 
ville  we  encountered  another  detour,  which  shut  us  off 
from  our  fine  road  and  enraged  us  so  that  we  decided  to 
ignore  the  sign  warning  us  to  keep  out  under  penalty  of 
the  law  and  to  go  on  anyhow.  There  seemed  a  good  road 
ahead  in  spite  of  the  sign,  and  so  we  deliberately  sepa 
rated  the  boards  on  posts  which  barred  the  way  and 
sped  on. 

But  the  way  of  the  transgressor — remember !    Scarcely 


ACROSS  THE  BORDER  OF  BOYLAND       271 

a  mile  had  gone  before  the  road  broke  into  fragments, 
partially  made  passable  by  a  filling  of  crushed  stone,  but 
after  that  it  swiftly  degenerated  into  mud,  rubble  and 
ruts,  and  we  began  to  think  we  had  made  a  dreadful  mis 
take.  Supposing  we  were  stalled  here  and  found?  What 
would  become  of  my  trip  to  Indiana !  Fined  and  de 
tained,  Franklin  might  get  very  much  out  of  sorts  and 
not  care  to  go  on.  Oh,  dear!  Oh,  dear! 

We  bumped  along  over  rocks  and  stumps  in  the  most 
uncomfortable  fashion.  The  car  rocked  like  a  boat  on  a 
helter-skelter  at  Coney  Island.  Finally  we  came  to  a 
dead  stop  and  looked  into  our  condition,  fore  and  aft. 
Things  were  becoming  serious.  Perspiration  began  to 
flow  and  regrets  for  our  sinful  tendencies  to  exude,  when, 
in  the  distance,  the  fence  at  the  other  end  appeared. 

Immediately  we  cheered  up.  Poof!  What  was  a 
small  adventure  like  this? — a  jolly  lark,  that  was  all. 
Who  wouldn't  risk  a  car  being  stuck  in  order  to  achieve 
a  cutoff  like  this  and  outwit  the  officers  of  the  law?  One 
had  to  take  a  sporting  chance  always.  Why  certainly! 
Nevertheless,  I  secretly  thanked  God  or  whatever  gods 
there  be,  and  Franklin  and  Speed  looked  intensely  re 
lieved.  We  jogged  along  another  eight  hundred  feet,  tore 
down  the  wire  screen  at  the  other  end,  and  rushed  on — a 
little  fearfully,  I  think,  since  there  was  a  farm  house 
near  at  hand  with  a  lot  of  road-making  machinery  in  the 
yard.  (Perhaps  it  was  the  home  of  the  road  foreman! 
I  hope  he  doesn't  ever  read  this  book,  and  come  and 
arrest  us.  Or  if  he  does  I  hope  he  only  arrests  Franklin 
and  Speed.  On  reflection  a  month  or  so  in  jail  would  not 
hurt  them  any,  I  think.^ 

And  then,  after  an  hour  or  so,  the  city  of  Fort  Wayne 
appeared  in  the  distance.  It  does  not  lie  on  high  ground, 
or  in  a  hollow,  but  the  presence  of  some  twenty  or  thirty 
of  those  antiquated  light  towers  which  I  mentioned  as 
having  been  installed  at  Evansville,  Indiana,  in  1882, 
and  which  were  still  in  evidence  here,  gave  it  that  ap 
pearance.  It  seemed  at  first  as  though  this  town  must 
be  on  a  rise  and  we  looking  up  at  it  from  a  valley;  as  we 


272  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

drew  nearer,  as  though  it  were  in  a  valley  and  we  looking 
down  from  a  height.  We  soon  came  to  one  of  those  pre 
tentious  private  streets,  so  common  in  the  cities  of  the 
West  in  these  days — a  street  with  a  great  gate  at  either 
end,  open  and  unguarded  and  set  with  a  superfluity  of 
lights ;  which  arrangement,  plus  houses  of  a  certain  grade 
of  costliness,  give  that  necessary  exclusiveness  the  newly 
rich  require,  apparently.  It  was  quite  impressive.  And 
then  we  came  to  a  place  where,  quite  in  the  heart  of  the 
city,  two  rivers,  the  St.  Mary  and  the  St.  Joseph,  joined 
to  make  the  Maumee;  and  here,  most  intelligently,  I 
thought,  a  small  park  had  been  made.  It  was  indeed 
pleasing.  And  then  we  raced  into  the  unescapable  Main 
Street  of  the  city,  in  this  instance  a  thoroughfare  so  blaz 
ing  with  lights  that  I  was  much  impressed.  One  would 
scarcely  see  more  light  on  the  Great  White  Way  in  New 
York. 


CHAPTER    XXXIV 

A   MIDDLE   WESTERN   CROWD 

THOUGH  a  city  of  seventyfive  thousand,  or  there 
abouts,  Fort  Wayne  made  scarcely  any  impression  upon 
me.  Now  that  I  was  back  in  Indiana  and  a  few  miles 
from  my  native  heath,  as  it  were,  I  expected,  or  perhaps 
I  only  half  imagined,  that  I  might  gain  impressions  and 
sensations  commensurate  with  my  anticipations.  But  I 
didn't.  This  was  the  city,  or  town,  as  it  was  then,  to 
which  my  parents  had  originally  traveled  after  their  mar 
riage  in  Dayton,  Ohio,  and  where  my  father  worked  in  a 
woolen  mill  as  foreman,  perhaps,  before  subsequently  be 
coming  its  manager.  It  had  always  been  a  place  of  in 
terest,  if  not  happy  memory,  to  my  mother,  who  seemed 
to  feel  that  she  had  been  very  happy  here. 

When  our  family,  such  as  it  was  (greatly  depleted  by 
the  departure  of  most  of  the  children),  came  north  to 
Warsaw,  Fort  Wayne,  so  much  nearer  than  Chicago  and 
a  city  of  forty  thousand,  was  the  Mecca  for  the  sporting 
youth  of  our  town.  To  go  to  Fort  Wayne !  What  a 
week  end  treat!  For  most  of  our  youth  who  had  suffi 
cient  means  to  travel  so  far,  it  was  a  city  of  great  adven 
ture.  The  fare  was  quite  one  dollar  and  seventyfive 
cents  for  the  round  trip,  and  only  the  bloods  and  sports, 
as  we  knew  them,  attempted  it.  I  never  had  money 
enough  to  go,  as  much  as  I  wanted  to,  nor  yet  the  friends 
who  were  eager  for  my  companionship. 

But  what  tales  did  I  not  hear  of  restaurants,  saloons, 
theatres,  and  other  resorts  of  pleasure  visited,  and  what 
veiled  hints  were  not  cast  forth  of  secret  pleasures  in 
dulged  in — flirtations,  if  not  more  vigorous  escapades. 
Life  was  such  a  phantasm  of  delight  to  me  then.  Name 
less  and  formless  pleasures  danced  constantly  before  my 

273 


274  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

eyes.  Principally,  not  quite  entirely,  they  were  connected 
with  the  beauty  of  girls,  though  money  and  privilege  and 
future  success  were  other  forms.  And  there  were  a  few 
youths  and  some  girls  in  Warsaw,  who  to  my  inexperi 
enced  judgment,  possessed  nearly  all  that  life  had  to 
offer! 

At  this  late  date,  however,  Fort  Wayne,  looking  at  it 
in  the  cold,  practical  light  of  a  middle-aged  automobile 
tourist,  offered  but  few  titillations,  either  reminiscent  or 
otherwise.  Here  it  was,  to  me,  sacred  ground,  and  here 
had  these  various  things  occurred,  yet  as  I  viewed  it  now 
it  seemed  a  rather  dull,  middle  West  town,  with  scarcely 
I  anything  save  a  brisk  commerce  to  commend  it.  Abroad 
'one  finds  many  cities  of  the  same  size  of  great  interest, 
historically  and  architecturally — but  here !  By  night  and 
1  day  it  seemed  bright  enough,  and  decidedly  clean.  All 
that  I  could  think  of  as  Franklin  and  I  drifted  about  it 
on  this  first  night  was  that  it  was  a  very  humble  copy  of 
every  other  larger  American  city  in  all  that  it  attempted 
— streets,  cabarets,  high  buildings  and  so  on.  Every 
small  city  in  America  desires  to  be  like  Chicago  or  New 
York  or  both,  to  reproduce  what  is  built  and  done  in  these 
places — the  most  obvious  things,  I  mean. 

After  dining  at  a  cabaret  Hofbrau  House  and  sleeping 
in  a  very  comfortable  room  which  admitted  the  clangor 
of  endless  street  car  bells,  however,  I  awoke  next  morn 
ing  with  a  sick  stomach  and  a  jaded  interest  in  all  ma 
terial  things,  and  I  had  neither  eaten  nor  drunk  much  of 
anything  the  night  before — truly,  truly!  We  had  sought 
out  the  principal  resort  and  sat  in  it  as  a  resource  against 
greater  boredom,  nothing  more.  And  now,  being  with 
out  appetite,  I  wandered  forth  to  the  nearest  drug  store 
to  have  put  up  the  best  remedy  I  know  for  a  sick  stomach 
— nux  vomica  and  gentian,  whatever  that  may  be. 

It  was  in  this  drug  store  that  the  one  interesting  thing 
in  Fort  Wayne  occurred — at  least  to  me.  There  were, 
as  it  was  still  early,  a  negro  sweeping  the  place,  and  one 
clerk,  a  lean  apothecary  with  reached  and  pointed  hair, 
who  was  concealed  in  some  rear  room.  He  came  forward 


A  MIDDLE  WESTERN  CROWD          275 

after  a  time,  took  my  prescription,  and  told  me  I  would 
have  to  wait  ten  minutes.  Later  another  man  hobbled  in, 
a  creature  who  looked  like  the  "before"  picture  of  a 
country  newspaper  patent  medicine  advertisement.  He 
was  so  gaunt  and  blue  and  sunken-seamed  as  to  face  that 
he  rather  frightened  me,  as  if  a  corpse  should  walk  into 
your  room  and  begin  to  look  around.  His  clothes  were 
old  and  brown  and  looked  as  though  they  had  been  worn 
heaven  knows  what  length  of  time.  The  clerk  came  out, 
and  he  asked  for  something  the  name  of  which  I  did  not 
catch.  Presently  the  clerk  came  back  with  his  prescrip 
tion  and  mine,  and  going  to  him  and  putting  down  a  bot 
tle  and  a  box  of  pills,  said  of  the  former,  holding  it  up, 
"Now  this  is  for  your  blood.  You  understand,  do  you? 
You  take  this  three  times  a  day,  every  day  until  it  is 
gone."  The  sick  man  nodded  like  an  automaton.  "And 
these" — he  now  held  up  the  pills — "are  for  your  bowels. 
You  take  two  o'  these  every  night." 

"This  is  for  my  blood  and  these  are  for  my  bowels," 
said  the  man  slowly. 

The  nostrums  were  wrapped  up  very  neatly  in  grey 
paper,  and  tied  with  a  pink  string.  The  corpse  extracted 
out  of  a  worn  leather  book  sixtyfive  cents  in  small  pieces, 
and  put  them  down.  Then  he  shuffled  slowly  out. 

"What  ails  him,  do  you  suppose?"  I  asked  of  the  dap 
per,  beau-like  clerk. 

"Oh,  chronic  anaemia.     He  can't  live  long." 

"Will  that  medicine  do  him  any  good,  do  you  think?" 

"Not  a  bit.  He  can't  live.  He'll  all  worn  out.  But 
he  goes  to  some  doctor  around  here  and  gets  a  prescrip 
tion  and  we  have  to  fill  it.  If  we  didn't,  someone  else 
would." 

He  smiled  on  me  most  genially. 

What  a  shame  to  take  his  money,  I  thought.  He  looks 
as  though  food  or  decent  clothes  would  be  better  for  him, 
but  what  might  one  say?  I  recalled  how  when  I  was 
young  and  chronically  ailing,  how  eagerly  I  clung  to  the 
thought  of  life,  and  would  I  not  now  if  I  were  in  his 
place?  Here  was  I  with  a  prescription  of  my  own  in  my 


276  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

hand  which  I  scarcely  touched  afterwards.  But  how  near 
to  his  grave  that  man  really  was.  And  how  futile  and 
silly  that  advice  about  his  blood  sounded! 

Without  any  special  interest  in  Fort  Wayne  to  delay 
us,  and  without  any  desire  to  see  or  do  anything  in  par 
ticular,  we  made  finally  that  memorable  start  for  War 
saw  toward  which  I  had  been  looking  ever  since  I  stepped 
into  the  car  in  New  York.  Now  in  an  hour  or  two  or 
three,  at  the  best,  I  would  be  seeing  our  old  home,  or  one 
of  them,  at  least,  and  gazing  at  the  things  which  of  all 
things  identified  with  my  youth  appealed  to  me  most. 
Here  I  had  had  my  first  taste  of  the  public  school  as  op 
posed  to  the  Catholic  or  parochial  school,  and  a  delightful 
change  it  was.  Warsaw  was  so  beautiful,  or  seemed  to 
me  so  at  the  time,  a  love  of  a  place,  with  a  river  or  small 
stream  and  several  lakes  and  all  the  atmosphere  of  a  pros 
perous  and  yet  homey  and  home-loving  resort.  My 
mother  and  father  and  sisters  and  brothers  were  so  inter 
esting  to  me  in  those  days.  As  in  the  poem  of  Davidson's, 

"The  sounding  cities,  rich  and  warm 
Smouldered  and  glittered  in  the  plain." 

I  was  thirteen,  fourteen,  fifteen,  sixteen.  The  sun  and 
the  air  and  some  responsive  chemistry  which  I  do  not 
understand  were  making  my  blood  into  wine.  Would  I 
now  be  dreadfully  disappointed? 

Our  way  lay  through  a  country  more  or  less  familiar 
as  to  its  character,  though  I  had  never  actually  been 
through  it  except  on  a  train.  All  about  were  small  towns 
and  lakes  which  I  had  heard  of  but  never  visited.  Now 
it  was  my  privilege  to  see  them  if  I  chose,  and  I  felt  very 
much  elated  over  it  all.  I  was  interested,  amused,  curi 
osity  stirred. 

But  it  was  not  until  we  reached  Columbia  City,  only 
twenty  miles  from  Warsaw,  that  my  imagination  was 
keenly  aroused.  Columbia  City,  small  as  it  was,  say  fifteen 
or  eighteen  hundred  at  that  time,  and  not  much  larger 
now,  was  another  spot  to  which  our  small-town  life-seek- 


' 


A  MIDDLE  WESTERN  CROWD          277 

ing  gadabouts  were  wont  to  run  on  a  Saturday  night — for 
what  purpose  I  scarcely  know,  since  I  never  had  sufficient 
means  to  accompany  them.  At  that  time,  in  that  vigor 
ously  imaginative  period,  I  conjured  up  all  sorts  of  syba 
ritic  delights,  as  being  the  end  and  aim  of  these  expedi 
tions,  since  the  youths  who  comprised  them  were  so  keen 
in  regard  to  all  matters  of  sex.  They  seemed  to  be  able 
to  think  of  nothing  else,  and  talked  girls,  girls,  girls 
from  morning  to  night,  or  made  sly  references  to  these 
jaunts  which  thereby  became  all  the  more  exciting  to  me. 
Warsaw  at  that  time  was  peculiarly  favored  with  a  bevy 
of  attractive  girls  who  kept  all  our  youths  on  the  qui  vive 
as  to  love  and  their  favor.  With  an  imagination  that 
probably  far  outran  my  years,  I  built  up  a  fancy  as  to 
Columbia  City  which  far  exceeded  its  import,  of  course. 
To  me  it  was  a  kind  of  Cairo  of  the  Egyptians,  with  two 
horned  Hathor  in  the  skies,  and  what  breaths  of  palms 
and  dulcet  quavers  of  strings  and  drums  I  know  not. 

These  youths,  who  were  quite  smart  and  possessed  of 
considerable  pocket  money,  much  more  than  I  ever  had 
or  could  get,  would  not  have  me  as  a  companion.  I  was 
a  betwixt  and  between  soul  at  that  time,  not  entirely  de 
barred  from  certain  phases  of  association  and  compan 
ionship  with  youths  somewhat  older  than  myself,  and 
yet  never  included  in  these  more  private  and  intimate  ad 
ventures  to  which  they  were  constantly  referring.  They 
kept  me  on  tenter  hooks,  as  did  the  ravishing  charms  of  so 
many  girls  about  us,  without  my  ever  being  satisfied.  Be 
sides,  from  this  very  town  had  come  a  girl  to  our  War 
saw  High  School  whom  I  used  to  contemplate  with  ador 
ing  eyes,  she  was  so  rounded  and  pink  and  gay.  But 
that  was  all  it  ever  came  to,  just  that — I  contemplated 
her  from  afar.  I  never  had  the  courage  to  go  near  her. 
In  the  presence  of  most  girls,  especially  the  attractive 
ones,  I  was  dumb,  frozen  by  a  nameless  fear. 

So  this  place,  now  we  reached  it,  had  interest  to  this 
extent,  that  I  wanted  to  see  what  it  was  like  although  I 
really  knew — courthouse,  courthouse  square,  surround 
ing  stores,  and  then  a  few  streets  with  simple  homes  and 


278  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

churches.  Exactly.  It  was  like  all  the  others,  only 
somewhat  poorer — not  so  good  as  Napoleon,  Ohio,  or 
even  Hicksville. 

But  there  was  something  that  was  much  better  than 
anything  we  had  encountered  yet — an  Old  Settler's  Day, 
no  less — which  had  filled  the  streets  with  people  and 
wagons  and  the  public  square  with  tents,  for  resting 
rooms,  had  spread  table  cloths  out  on  the  public  lawn  for 
eating,  while  a  merry-go-round  whirled  in  the  middle  of 
one  street,  and  various  tents  and  stands  on  several  sides 
of  the  square  were  crowded  with  eatables  and  drinkables 
of  sorts.  I  believe  they  have  dubbed  these  small  aisles  of 
tents  a  "Broadway,"  in  the  middle  West.  Of  course, 
there  were  popcorn,  candy,  hot  "weenies,"  as  sausages  are 
known  hereabouts,  and  lemonade.  I  never  saw  a  more 
typically  rural  crowd,  nor  one  that  seemed  to  get  more 
satisfaction  out  of  its  modest  pleasures. 

But  the  very  old  farmers  and  their  wives,  the  old  set 
tlers  and  settleresses  and  their  children  and  their  grand 
children,  and  their  great  grandchildren!  Life  takes  on 
at  once  comic  and  yet  poetic  and  pathetic  phases  the  mo 
ment  you  view  a  crowd  of  this  kind  in  the  detached  way 
that  we  were  doing  it.  Here  were  men  and  women  so 
old  and  worn  and  bent  and  crumpled  by  the  ageing  proc 
esses  of  life  that  they  looked  like  the  yellow  leaves  of  the 
autumn.  Compared  with  the  fresh  young  people  who 
were  to  be  seen  spinning  about  on  the  merry-go-round, 
or  walking  the  streets  in  twos  and  threes,  they  were  in 
finitely  worn.  Such  coats  and  trousers,  actually  cut  and 
sewn  at  home!  And  such  hats  and  whiskers  and  canes 
and  shoes !  I  called  Franklin's  attention  to  two  stocky, 
pinky  rustics  wearing  Charlie  Chaplin  hats  and  carrying 
Charlie  Chaplin  canes,  and  then  to  group  after  group  of 
men  and  women  so  astonishing  that  they  seemed  figures 
out  of  some  gnome  or  troll  world,  figures  so  distorted  as 
to  seem  only  fit  fancies  for  a  dream.  We  sat  down  by 
one  so  weird  that  he  seemed  the  creation  of  a  genius  bent 
on  depicting  age.  I  tried  to  strike  up  a  conversation,  but 
he  would  not.  He  did  not  seem  to  hear.  I  began  to 


A  MIDDLE  WESTERN  CROWD          279 

whisper  to  Franklin  concerning  the  difference  between  a 
figure  like  this  and  those  aspirations  which  we  held  in  our 
youth  concerning  "getting  on."  Life  seems  to  mock  it 
self  with  these  walking  commentaries  on  ambition.  Of 
what  good  are  the  fruits  of  earthly  triumph  anyhow? 

Nearly  all  of  the  older  ones,  to  add  to  their  pictur- 
esqueness,  wore  bits  of  gold  lettered  cloth  which  stated 
clearly  that  they  were  old  settlers.  They  stalked  or  hob 
bled  or  stood  about  talking  in  a  mechanical  manner. 
They  rasped  and  cackled — "grandthers,"  "gaffers,"  "Po- 
lichinelles,"  "Pantaloons."  I  had  to  smile,  and  yet  if 
the  least  breath  of  the  blood  mood  of  sixteen  were  to 
return,  one  would  cry. 

And  then  came  the  younger  generations !  I  wish  those 
who  are  so  sure  that  democracy  is  a  great  success  and 
never  to  be  upset  by  the  cunning  and  self-interestedness 
of  wily  and  unscrupulous  men,  would  make  a  face  to  face 
study  of  these  people.  I  am  in  favor  of  the  dream  of 
democracy,  on  whatever  basis  it  can  be  worked  out.  It 
is  an  ideal.  But  how,  I  should  like  to  ask,  is  a  prole 
tariat  such  as  this,  and  poorer  specimens  yet,  as  we  all 
know,  to  hold  its  own  against  the  keen,  resourceful  oli 
garchs  at  the  top  ?  Certainly  ever  since  I  have  been  in  the 
world,  I  have  seen  nothing  but  Americans  who  were  so 
sure  that  the  people  were  fit  to  rule,  and  did  rule,  and  that 
nothing  but  the  widest  interests  of  all  the  people  were 
ever  really  sought  by  our  statesmen  and  leaders  in  vari 
ous  fields.  The  people  are  all  right  and  to  be  trusted. 
They  are  capable  of  understanding  their  public  and  pri 
vate  affairs  in  such  a  manner  as  to  bring  the  greatest 
happiness  to  the  greatest  number — but  are  they?  I  was 
taught  this  in  the  adjacent  schools  of  Warsaw,  quite  as 
I  was  taught  that  the  Christian  ideal  was  right  and  true, 
and  that  it  really  prevailed  in  life,  and  that  those  who  did 
not  agree  with  it  were  thieves  and  scoundrels.  Actually, 
I  went  into  life  from  this  very  region  believing  largely  in 
all  this,  only  to  find  by  degrees  that  this  theory  had  no 
relationship  to  the  facts.  Life  was  persistently  demon 
strating  to  me  that  self-interest  and  only  self-interest 


280  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

ruled — that  strength  dominated  weakness,  that  large 
ideas  superseded  and  ruled  small  ones,  and  so  on  and  so 
forth,  ad  infinitum.  It  was  interesting  and  even  aston 
ishing  to  find  that  we  were  not  only  being  dominated 
mentally  by  a  theory  that  had  no  relationship  to  life 
whatsoever,  but  that  large,  forceful  brains  were  even 
then  plotting  the  downfall  of  the  republic.  Big  minds 
were  ruling  little  ones,  big  thoughts  superseding  little 
ones.  The  will  to  power  was  in  all  individuals  above  the 
grade  of  amoeba,  and  even  there.  All  of  us  were  mouth 
ing  one  set  of  ideas  and  acting  according  to  a  set  of  in 
stincts  entirely  opposed  to  our  so  called  ideas.  I,  for  one, 
was  always  charging  individuals  with  failing  to  live  up  to 
the  Christian  idea  and  its  derived  moral  code,  whereas 
no  detail  of  the  latter  affected  my  own  conduct  in  the 
least. 

Looking  at  this  crowd  of  people  here  in  the  streets  of 
Columbia  City,  I  was  more  affected  by  their  futility  and 
pathos — life's  futility  and  pathos  for  the  mass — than  by 
anything  else  so  far.  What  could  these  people  do,  even 
by  banding  together,  to  control  the  giants  at  the  top? 
Here  they  were,  entertained  like  babies  by  the  most  pa 
thetic  toys — a  badge,  a  little  conversation,  a  little  face- 
to-face  contemplation  of  other  futilitarians  as  badly 
placed  as  themselves.  The  merry-go-round  was  spinning 
and  grinding  out  a  wheezy  tune.  I  saw  young  girls  sit 
ting  sidewise  of  wooden  horses,  lions  and  the  like,  their 
dresses  (because  of  the  short  skirt  craze)  drawn  to  the 
knee,  or  nearly  so.  Imagine  the  storm  which  would 
have  ensued  in  my  day  had  any  girl  dared  to  display 
more  than  an  ankle!  (Custom!  Custom!)  About 
it  were  small  boys  and  big  boys  and  big  girls,  for 
the  most  part  too  poor  to  indulge  in  its  circular  madness 
very  often,  who  were  contenting  themselves  with  con 
templating  the  ecstasy  of  others. 

"Franklin,"  I  said,  "you  were  raised  out  in  this  region 
about  the  time  I  was.  How  would  such  a  spectacle  as 
that  have  been  received  in  our  day?"  (I  was  referring  to 


A  MIDDLE  WESTERN  CROWD          281 

the  exhibition  of  legs,  and  I  was  very  pleased  with  it  as 
such,  not  quarreling  with  it  at  all.) 

"Oh,  shocking,"  he  replied,  smiling  reminiscently,  "it 
just  wouldn't  have  occurred." 

"And  how  do  you  explain  its  possibility  now?  These 
people  are  just  as  religious,  aren't  they?" 

"Nearly  so — but  fashion,  fashion,  the  mass  love  of 
imitation.  If  the  mass  want  to  do  it  and  can  find  an  ex 
cuse  or  permission  in  the  eyes  of  others,  or  even  if  they 
don't  want  to  do  it,  but  their  superiors  do,  they  will  suffer 
it.  I  haven't  the  slightest  doubt  but  that  there  is  many 
a  girl  sitting  on  a  wooden  horse  in  there  who  would 
rather  not  have  her  skirt  pulled  up  to  her  knees,  but  since 
others  do  it  she  does  it.  She  wants  to  be  'in  the  swim.' 
And  she'd  rather  be  unhappy  or  a  little  ashamed  than 
not  be  in  the  swim.  Nothing  hurts  like  being  out  of 
style,  you  know,  especially  out  in  the  country  these  days 
— not  even  the  twinges  of  a  Puritan  conscience." 

"Franklin,"  I  said,  "I'll  tell  you.  You  were  raised  on 
a  farm  and  know  farmer  boys  at  sight.  Pick  me  out  a 
farmer's  boy  here  and  now,  who  hasn't  money  enough  to 
ride  in  this  thing,  and  I'll  give  him  a  dime.  We'll  see 
how  he  takes  it." 

Franklin  smiled  and  looked  around  carefully.  The 
thing  interested  him  so  much  that  he  finally  circled  the 
merry-go-round  and  lighted  on  one  youth  whose  short 
pants  and  ungainly  shoes  and  cheap  but  clean  little  dotted 
shirt  and  small  fifteen  or  twentyfive  cent  hat  and  pink 
cheeks,  as  well  as  his  open  mouth  and  rapt  attention,  in 
dicated  that  here  was  a  wonder  with  which  he  was  thor 
oughly  unfamiliar.  I  waited  to  see  if  he  would  step 
aboard  at  the  next  stop  of  the  car,  or  the  next,  but  no,  he 
was  merely  an  onlooker.  At  the  next  start  of  the  car  or 
platform  I  watched  his  eager  eyes  follow  those  who  got 
on.  It  was  pathetic,  and  when  the  merry-go-round 
started  again  he  gazed  aloft  at  the  whirling  thing  in  an 
ecstasy  of  delight.  As  it  was  slowing  down  for  the  sec 
ond  or  third  time,  preparatory  to  taking  on  a  new  load,  I 
reached  over  his  shoulder  and  quite  unheeded,  at  first, 


282  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

put  a  quarter  before  his  eyes.  For  a  moment  he  stopped 
quite  dazed  and  looked  at  it,  then  at  me,  then  at  the 
quarter,  then  at  me. 

"Go  on!  Ride!"  I  commanded.  "Get  on!"  The 
carousel  was  almost  still. 

Suddenly,  with  a  mixture  of  reverence,  awe,  and  a 
world  of  surprise  in  his  eyes,  he  seemed  to  comprehend 
what  I  meant.  He  looked  at  his  shabby  father  who  had 
been  standing  near  him  all  this  while,  but  finding  him  in 
terested  in  other  things,  clambered  aboard.  I  watched 
him  take  his  place  beside  a  horse,  not  on  it.  I  watched  it 
start  with  almost  as  much  pleasure  as  came  to  him,  I 
think.  Then  as  the  speed  increased,  I  turned  to  urge 
Franklin  to  photograph  two  old  men,  who  were  near. 
They  were  so  wonderful.  We  were  still  at  that  when  the 
machine  stopped,  only  I  did  not  notice.  I  was  watching  the 
two  old  men.  All  at  once  I  saw  this  boy  making  his  way 
through  the  crowd.  He  had  his  hand  out  before  him, 
and  as  he  reached  me  he  opened  it  and  there  were  the 
four  nickels  change. 

"Oh,  no,"  I  said.  "I  didn't  mean  you  to  give  them 
back.  Run  quick!  Ride  again!  Get  on  before  it  starts 
again." 

I  can  see  those  round,  surprised  blue  eyes  with  the  un 
certain  light  of  vague  comprehension  and  happiness  in 
them.  He  could  scarcely  make  it  out. 

"Run  quick,"  I  said.  "Ride  four  times,  or  do  any 
thing  you  please." 

His  eyes  seemed  to  get  rounder  and  bigger  for  a  sec 
ond,  then  his  hand  wavered,  and  the  hungry  fingers  shut 
:  tight  on  the  money.  He  ran. 

"How's  that  for  getting  a  thousand  dollars'  worth  of 
fun  for  a  nickel,  Franklin?"  I  inquired. 

"Right-o,"  he  replied.  "We  ought  to  be  ashamed  to 
take  it." 

And  it  was  literally  true,  so  subtle  are  the  ways  by 
which  one  can  come  by  what  does  not  belong  to  him,  even 
though  partially  paid  for. 


CHAPTER    XXXV 

WARSAW  AT   LAST  I 

GETTING  to  Warsaw  was  a  matter  of  an  hour  or  so  at 
most  from  here.  I  think  my  principal  sensation  on  en 
tering  Indiana  and  getting  thus  far  was  one  of  disappoint 
ment  thatjiothing  had  happened,  and  worse,  nothing 
could  happen.  From  here  on  it  was  even  worse.  It  is 
all  very  well  to  dream  of  revisiting  your  native  soil  and 
finding  at  least  traces,  if  no  more,  of  your  early  world, 
but  I  tell  you  it  is  a  dismal  and  painful  business.  Life  is 
a  shifting  and  changing  thing.  Not  only  your  own 
thoughts  and  moods,  but  those  of  all  others  who  endure, 
undergo  a  mighty  alteration.  Houses  and  landscapes 
and  people  go  by  and  return  no  more.  The  very  land 
itself  changes.  All  that  is  left  of  what  you  were,  or  of 
what  was,  in  your  own  brain,  is  a  dwindling  and  spindling 
thing. 

Not  many  miles  out  from  Warsaw,  we  passed  through 
the  town  of  Pierc^ton,  where  lived  two  girls  I  barely 
knew  at  school,  and  here  we  picked  up  a  typical  Hoosier, 
who,  because  we  asked  the  road  of  the  principal  store 
keeper,  volunteered  4to  ride  along  and  show  us.  "I'm 
going  for  a  couple  of  miles  in  that  direction.  If  you  don't 
mind  I'll  get  in  and  show  you." 

Franklin  welcomed  him.  I  objected  to  the  shrewd  type, 
a  cross  between  a  country  politician  and  a  sales  agent,  who 
manages  his  errands  in  this  way,  but  I  said  nothing.  He 
made  himself  comfortable  alongside  Speed  and  talked  to 
him  principally  the  small  change  of  country  life. 

As  we  sped  along  I  began  to  feel  an  ugly  resentment 
toward  all  life  and  change,  and  the  driving,  destroying 
urge  of  things.  The  remorselessness  of  time,  how  bit 
terly,  irritatingly  clear  it  stood  out  here !  We  talk  about 

283 


284  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

the  hardness  and  cruelty  of  men !  Contrast  their  sharpest, 
most  brutal  connivings  with  the  slow,  indifferent  sapping 
of  strength  and  hope  and  joy  which  nature  practices  upon 
each  and  every  one  of  us.  See  the  utter  brutality  with 
which  every  great  dream  is  filched  from  the  mind,  all  the 
delicate,  tendril-like  responsiveness  of  youth  is  taken 
away,  your  friends  and  pleasures  and  aspirations  slain.  I 
looked  about  me,  and  beginning  to  recognize  familiar  soil, 
such  as  a  long  stretch  of  white  road  ending  in  an  old  ice 
house,  a  railroad  track  out  which  I  had  walked,  felt  a 
sudden,  overpowering,  almost  sickening  depression  at  the 
lapse  of  time  and  all  that  had  gone  with  it.  Thirty  years, 
nearly,  had  passed  and  with  them  all  the  people  and  all 
the  atmosphere  that  surrounded  them,  or  nearly  so,  and 
all  my  old  intimacies  and  loves  and  romantic  feelings. 
A  dead  world  like  this  is  such  a  compound — a  stained- 
glass  window  at  its  best;  a  bone  yard  at  its  worst. 

Approaching  Warsaw  after  thirty  years,  my  mind  was 
busy  gathering  up  a  thousand  threads  long  since  fallen 
and  even  rotting  in  the  grass  of  time.  Here  was  the 
place,  I  said  to  myself,  where  we,  the  depleted  portion 
of  our  family  that  constituted  "we"  at  the  time,  came  to 
stabilize  our  troubled  fortunes  and  (it  was  my  mother's 
idea)  to  give  the  three  youngest  children,  of  whom  I  was 
one,  an  opportunity  to  get  a  sensible  American  free  school 
education.  Hitherto  our  family  (to  introduce  a  little 
private  history)  had  been  more  or  less  under  the  domina 
tion  of  my  dogmatic  father,  who  was  a  Catholic  and  a 
bigot.  I  never  knew  a  narrower,  more  hidebound  re 
ligionist,  nor  one  more  tender  and  loving  in  his  narrow 
way.  He  was  a  crank,  a  tenth  rate  Saint  Simon  or  Fran 
cis  of  Assisi,  and  yet  a  charming  person  if  it  had  been 
possible  to  get  his  mind  off  the  subject  of  religion  for 
more  than  three  seconds  at  a  time.  He  worked,  ate, 
played,  slept  and  dreamed  religion.  With  no  other 
thought  than  the  sanctity  and  glory  and  joy  of  the  Catho 
lic  Church,  he  was  constantly  attempting  to  drive  a  de 
cidedly  recalcitrant  family  into  a  similar  point  of  view. 

In  the  main   (there  were  ten  of  us  living)   we  would 


WARSAW  AT  LAST!  285 

none  of  it.  The  majority,  by  some  trick  of  chemistry 
which  produces  unheard  of  reactions  in  the  strangest 
manner  (though  he  and,  to  a  much  less  extent,  my  mother, 
were  religiously  minded)  were  caught  fast  by  the  ma 
terial,  unreligious  aspect  of  things.  They  were,  one  and 
all,  mastered  by  the  pagan  life  stream  which  flows  fresh 
and  clean  under  all  our  religions  and  all  our  views,  mor 
alistic  and  otherwise.  It  will  have  none  of  the  petty, 
narrowing  traps  and  gins  wherewith  the  mistaken  proc 
esses  of  the  so-called  minds  of  some  would  seek  to  enslave 
it.  Life  will  not  be  boxed  in  boxes.  It  will  not  be 
wrapped  and  tied  up  with  strings  and  set  aside  on  a  shelf 
to  await  a  particular  religious  or  moral  use.  As  yet  we 
do  not  understand  life,  we  do  not  know  what  it  is,  what 
the  laws  are  that  govern  it.  At  best  we  see  ourselves 
hobbling  along,  responding  to  this  dream  and  that  lust 
and  unable  to  compel  ourselves  to  gainsay  the  fires  and 
appetites  and  desires  of  our  bodies  and  minds.  Some  of 
these,  in  some  of  us,  strangely  enough  (and  purely  ac 
cidentally,  of  that  I  am  convinced)  conform  to  the  cur 
rent  needs  or  beliefs  of  a  given  society;  and  if  we  should 
be  so  fortunate  as  to  find  ourselves  in  that  society,  we  are 
by  reason  of  these  ideals,  favorites,  statesmen,  children  of 
fortune,  poets  of  the  race.  On  the  other  hand,  others  of 
us  who  do  not  and  cannot  conform  (who  are  left-over 
phases  of  ancient  streams,  perhaps,  or  portentous  striae 
of  new  forces  coming  into  play)  are  looked  upon  as  hor 
rific,  and  to  be  stabilized,  or  standardized,  and  brought 
into  the  normal  systole-diastole  of  things.  Those  of  us 
endowed  with  these  things  in  mind  and  blood  are  truly 
terrible  to  the  mass — pariahs,  failures,  shams,  disgraces. 
Yet  life  is  no  better  than  its  worst  elements,  no  worse 
than  its  best.  Its  perfections  are  changing  temporalities, 
illusions  of  perfection  that  will  be  something  very  differ 
ent  tomorrow.  Again  I  say,  we  do  not  know  what  life  is 
— not  nearly  enough  to  set  forth  a  fixed  code  of  any  kind, 
religious  or  otherwise.  But  we  do  know  that  it  sings  and 
stings,  that  it  has  perfections,  entrancements,  shames — 
each  according  to  his  blood  flux  and  its  chemical  char- 


286  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

acter.  Life  is  rich,  gorgeous,  an  opium  eater's  dream  of 
something  paradisiacal — but  it  is  never  the  thin  thing 
that  thin  blood  and  a  weak,  ill  nourished,  poorly  respond 
ing  brain  would  make  it,  and  that  is  where  the  majority 
of  our  religions,  morals,  rules  and  safeguards  come  from. 
From  thin,  petered  out  blood,  and  poor,  nervous,  non- 
commanding  weak  brains. 

Life  is  greater  than  anything  we  know. 

It  is  stronger. 

It  is  wilder. 

It  is  more  horrible. 

It  is  more  beautiful. 

We  need  not  stop  and  think  we  have  found  a  solution. 
We  have  not  even  found  a  beginning.  We  do  not  know. 
And  my  patriotic  father  wanted  us  all  to  believe  in  the 
Catholic  church  and  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope  and 
confession  and  communion! 

Great  Pan  of  the  Greeks,  and  you,  Isis  of  the  Egyp 
tians,  save  me !  These  moderns  are  all  insane  1 

But  I  was  talking  of  the  effect  of  the  approach  of 
Warsaw  upon  me.  And  I  want  to  get  back  to  my  mother, 
for  she  was  the  center  of  all  my  experiences  here.  Such 
a  woman !  Truly,  when  I  think  of  my  mother  I  feel  that 
I  had  best  keep  silent.  I  certainly  had  one  of  the  most 
perfect  mothers  ever  a  man  had.  Warsaw,  in  fact,  really 
means  my  mother  to  me,  for  here  I  first  came  to  par 
tially  understand  her,  to  view  her  as  a  woman  and  to 
know  how  remarkable  she  was.  An  open,  uneducated, 
wondering,  dreamy  mind,  none  of  the  customary,  con 
scious  principles  with  which  so  many  conventional  souls 
are  afflicted.  A  happy,  hopeful,  animal  mother,  with  a 
desire  to  live,  and  not  much  constructive  ability  where 
with  to  make  real  her  dreams.  A  pagan  mother  taken 
over  into  the  Catholic  Church  at  marriage,  because  she 
loved  a  Catholic  and  would  follow  her  love  anywhere. 
A  great  poet  mother,  because  she  loved  fables  and  fairies 
and  half  believed  in  them,  and  once  saw  the  Virgin  Mary 
standing  in  our  garden  (this  was  at  Sullivan) ,  blue  robes, 


WARSAW  AT  LAST!  287 

crown  and  all,  and  was  sure  it  was  she !  She  loved  the 
trees  and  the  flowers  and  the  clouds  and  the  sound  of  the 
wind,  and  was  wont  to  cry  over  tales  of  poverty  almost 
as  readily  as  over  poverty  itself,  and  to  laugh  over  the 
mannikin  fol  de  rols  of  all  too  responsive  souls.  A  great 
hearted  mother — loving,  tender,  charitable,  who  loved 
the  ne'er  do  well  a  little  better  than  those  staid  favorites 
of  society  who  keep  all  laws.  Her  own  children  fre 
quently  complained  of  her  errors  and  tempers  (what  mor 
tal  ever  failed  so  to  do?)  and  forgot  their  own  beams  to 
be  annoyed  by  her  motes.  But  at  that  they  loved  her, 
each  and  every  one,  and  could  not  stay  away  from  her 
very  long  at  a  time,  so  potent  and  alive  she  was. 

I  always  say  I  know  how  great  some  souls  can  be  be 
cause  I  know  how  splendid  that  of  my  mother  was. 
Hail,  you !  wherever  you  are ! 

In  drawing  near  to  Warsaw,  I  felt  some  of  this  as  of  a 
thousand  other  things  which  had  been  at  that  time  and 
now  were  no  more. 

We  came  in  past  the  new  outlying  section  of  Winona, 
a  region  of  summer  homes,  boat  houses  and  casinos  scat 
tered  about  a  lake  which  in  my  day  was  entirely  sur 
rounded  by  woods,  green  and  still,  and  thence  along  a 
street  which  I  found  out  later  was  an  extension  of  the 
very  street  on  which  we  had  originally  lived,  only  now 
very  much  lengthened  to  provide  a  road  out  to  Winona. 
Lined  on  either  side  by  the  most  modern  of  cottages, 
these  new  style  verandaed,  summer  resorty  things  hung 
with  swings  and  couch  hammocks  which  one  sees  at  all 
the  modern  American  watering  places,  it  was  too  new  and 
smart  to  suit  me  exactly  and  carried  with  it  no  suggestion 
of  anything  that  I  had  been  familiar  with.  A  little  farther 
on,  though,  it  merged  into  something  that  I  did  know. 
There  were  houses  that  looked  as  though  they  might 
have  endured  all  of  forty  years  and  been  the  same  ones  I 
had  known  as  the  houses  of  some  of  my  youthful  com 
panions.  I  tried  to  find  the  home  of  Loretta  Brown,  for 
instance,  who  was  killed  a  few  years  later  in  a  wreck  in 


288  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

the  West,  and  of  Bertha  Stillmayer,  who  used  to  hold 
my  youthful  fancy,  at  a  distance.  I  could  not  find  them. 
There  was  a  church,  also,  at  one  corner,  which  I  was 
almost  sure  I  knew,  and  then  suddenly,  as  we  neared  an 
other  corner,  I  recognized  two  residences.  One  was  that 
of  the  principal  lumber  dealer  of  our  town,  a  man  who 
with  his  son  and  daughter  and  a  few  other  families  con 
stituted  the  elite,  and  next  to  it,  the  home  of  the  former 
owner  of  the  principal  dry  goods  store;  very  fine  houses 
both  of  them,  and  suggesting  by  their  architecture  and 
the  arrangement  of  their  grounds  all  that  at  one  time  I 
thought  was  perfect — the  topmost  rung  of  taste  and  re 
spectability  ! 

In  my  day  these  were  very  close  to  the  business  heart, 
but  so  was  everything  in  Warsaw  then.  In  the  first  and 
better  one,  rather  that  of  the  wealthier  of  the  two  men, 
for  they  were  both  very  much  alike  in  their  physical  de 
tails,  was,  of  all  things,  an  automobile  show  room — an 
interesting  establishment  of  its  kind,  made  possible,  no 
doubt,  by  the  presence  of  the  prosperous  summer  resort 
we  had  just  passed.  On  the  porch  of  this  house  and  its 
once  exclusive  walk  were  exhibition  tires  and  posters  of 
the  latest  automobiles.  In  the  other  house,  more  precious 
to  me  still  because  of  various  memories,  was  the  present 
home  of  the  local  Knights  of  Pythias,  an  organization  I 
surely  need  not  describe.  In  front  of  it  hung  a  long, 
perpendicular  glass  sign  or  box,  which  could  be  lighted 
from  within  by  incandescent  globes.  The  lettering  was 
merely  "K.  of  P." 

In  years  and  years  I  cannot  recall  anything  giving  me 
a  sharper  wrench.  I  was  so  surprised,  although  I  was 
fully  prepared  not  to  be — not  that  I  cared,  really,  whether 
these  houses  had  changed  or  not — I  didn't.  But  in  one  of 
them,  the  present  home  of  the  K.  of  P.,  had  lived  in  my 
time  the  Yaisley  family,  and  this  family  was  endeared  to 
me,  partly  by  its  wealth  (qualify  this  by  the  inexperience 
of  youth  and  our  personal  poverty)  and  partly  by  the 
presence  of  Dora  Yaisley,  the  youngest  daughter,  who 
was  a  girl  of  about  my  own  age,  possibly  younger,  and 


WARSAW  AT  LAST!  289 

who,  to  me,  was  so  beautiful  that  I  used  to  dream  about 
her  all  the  time.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  from  my  fourteenth 
to  my  sixteenth  year,  from  the  first  time  I  saw  her  until  a 
long  time  after  I  had  seen  her  no  more,  she  was  the  one 
girl  whose  perfection  I  was  sure  of.  Perhaps  she  would 
not  be  called  beautiful  by  many.  No  doubt,  if  I  could 
see  her  today,  she  would  not  appeal  to  me  at  all.  But 


CHAPTER    XXXVI 

WARSAW   IN    1884-6 

AND  right  here  I  began  to  ponder  on  the  mystery 
of  association  and  contact,  the  chemistry  and  physics 
of  transference  by  which  a  sky  or  a  scene  becomes  a 
delicious  presence  in  the  human  brain  or  the  human  blood, 
carried  around  for  years  in  that  mystic  condition  de 
scribed  as  "a  memory"  and  later  transferred,  perhaps, 
or  not,  by  conversation,  paint,  music,  or  the  written 
word,  to  the  brains  of  others,  there  to  be  carried 
around  again  and  possibly  extended  in  ever  widening 
and  yet  fading  circles  in  accordance  with  that  curious, 
so-called  law  (is  it  a  law?)  of  the  transmutation  of  en 
ergy.  That  sounds  so  fine,  that  law  of  transmutation, 
and  yet  it  makes  such  short  work  of  that  other  fine 
palaver  about  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  How  many 
impressions  have  you  transferred  in  this  way?  How 
much  of  you  has  gone  from  you  in  this  way  and  died? 
A  thin  and  pathetic  end,  I  say,  if  all  go  on,  being  thinned 
and  transmuted  as  they  go. 

Warsaw  was  an  idyllic  town  for  a  youth  of  my  tem 
perament  and  age  to  have  been  brought  to  just  at  that 
time.  It  was  so  young,  vigorous  and  hopeful.  I  recall 
with  never-ending  delight  the  intense  sense  of  beauty  its 
surrounding  landscape  gave  me,  its  three  lakes,  the  Tip- 
pecanoe  River,  which  drained  two  of  them,  the  fine  woods 
and  roads  and  bathing  places  which  lay  in  various  direc 
tions.  People  were  always  coming  to  Warsaw  to  shoot 
ducks  in  the  marshes  about,  or  to  fish  or  summer  on  the 
lakes.  Its  streets  were  graced  with  many  trees — they 
were  still  here  in  various  places  as  we  rode  about  today, 
and  not  so  much  larger,  as  I  could  see,  than  when  I  was 
here  years  before.  The  courthouse,  new  in  my  day, 

290 


WARSAW  IN  1884-6  291 

standing  in  an  open  square  and  built  of  white  Indiana 
limestone,  was  as  imposing  as  ever,  and,  as  we  came  upon 
it  now  turning  a  corner,  it  seemed  a  really  handsome 
building,  one  of  the  few  in  towns  of  this  size  which  I 
had  seen  which  I  could  honestly  say  I  liked.  The  princi 
pal  streets,  Centre,  Buffalo  and  South,  were  better  built, 
if  anything,  than  in  my  time,  and  actually  wider  than  I 
had  recalled  them  as  being.  They  were  imbued  with  a 
spirit  not  different  to  that  which  I  had  felt  while  living 
here.  Only  on  the  northwest  corner  of  Centre  and  Buf 
falo  Streets  (the  principal  street  corner  opposite  this 
courthouse)  where  once  had  stood  a  bookstore,  and 
next  to  that  a  small  restaurant  with  an  oyster  counter, 
and  next  to  that  a  billiard  and  pool  room,  the  three  con 
stituting  in  themselves  the  principal  meeting  or  loafing 
place  for  the  idle  young  of  all  ages,  the  clever  workers, 
school  boys,  clerks  and  what  not  of  the  entire  town,  and 
I  presume  county — all  this  was  entirely  done  away  with, 
and  in  its  place  was  a  stiff,  indifferent,  exclusive  look 
ing  bank  building  of  three  stories  in  height,  which  gave 
no  least  suggestion  of  an  opportunity  for  such  life  as  we 
had  known  to  exist  here. 

Where  do  the  boys  meet  now,  I  asked  myself,  and 
what  boys?  I  should  like  to  see.  Why,  this  was  the 
very  center  and  axis  of  all  youthful  joy  and  life  in  my 
day.  There  is  a  kind  of  freemasonry  of  generations 
which  binds  together  the  youths  of  one  season,  plus  those 
of  a  season  or  two  elder,  and  a  season  or  two  younger. 
At  this  corner,  and  in  these  places,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
village  post  office,  Peter's  Shoe  Repairing  and  Shine  Par 
lor,  and  Moon's  and  Thompson's  grocery  stores,  we  of 
ages  ranging  from  fourteen  to  seventeen  and  eighteen — 
never  beyond  nineteen  or  twenty — knew  only  those  who 
fell  within  these  masonic  periods.  To  be  of  years  not 
much  less  nor  more  than  these  was  the  sine  qua  non  of 
happy  companionship.  To  have  a  little  money,  to  be  in 
the  high  or  common  school  (upper  grades),  to  have  a 
little  gaiety,  wit,  and  intelligence,  to  be  able  to  think  and 


292  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

talk  of  girls  in  a  clever,  flirtatious  (albeit  secretly  nervous 
manner) ,  were  almost  as  seriously  essential. 

A  fellow  by  the  name  of  Pierre  (we  always  called  him 
Peary)  Morris  ran  this  bookstore,  which  was  the  most 
popular  meeting  place  of  all.  Here,  beginning  with  the 
earliest  days  after  our  arrival,  I  recognized  a  sympathetic 
atmosphere,  though  I  was  somewhat  too  young  to  share 
in  it.  My  mother  (my  father  was  still  working  in  Terre 
Haute)  placed  us  in  what  was  known  as  the  West  Ward 
School.  It  adjoined  an  old  but  very  comfortable  house 
we  had  rented;  the  school  yard  and  our  yard  touched. 
Here  we  dwelt  for  one  year  and  part  of  another,  then 
moved  directly  across  the  street,  south,  into  an  old  brick 
house  known  as  the  Thralls  Mansion,  one  of  the  first — 
as  I  understood  it,  actually  the  first — brick  house  to  be 
built  in  the  county  years  and  years  before.  Here,  in 
these  two  houses,  we  spent  all  the  time  that  I  was  in 
Warsaw.  From  the  frame  or  "old  Grant  house,"  I  sal 
lied  each  day  to  my  studies  of  the  seventh  grade  in  the 
school  next  door.  From  the  Thralls  house  I  accompanied 
my  sister  Tillie  each  day  to  the  high  school,  in  the  heart 
of  the  town,  not  far  from  this  court  house,  where  I  com 
pleted  my  work  in  the  eighth  grade  and  first  year  high. 
I  have  (in  spite  of  the  fact  that  I  have  been  myself  all 
these  years)  but  a  very  poor  conception  of  the  type  of 
youth  I  was,  and  yet  I  love  him  dearly.  For  one  thing, 
I  know  that  he  was  a  dreamer.  For  another,  somewhat 
cowardly,  but  still  adventurous  and  willing,  on  most  oc 
casions,  to  take  a  reasonable  chance.  For  a  third,  he 
was  definitely  enthusiastic  about  girls  or  beauty  in  the 
female  form,  and  what  was  more,  about  beauty  in  all 
forms,  natural  and  otherwise.  What  clouds  meant  to 
him!  What  morning  and  evening  skies!  What  the 
murmur  of  the  wind,  the  beauty  of  small  sails  on  our 
lakes,  birds  a-wing,  the  color  and  flaunt  and  rhythm  of 
things ! 

Walking,  playing,  dreaming,  studying,  I  had  finally 
come  to  feel  myself  an  integral  part  of  the  group  of 
youths,  if  not  girls,  who  centered  about  this  bookstore 


WARSAW  IN  1884-6  293 

and  this  corner.  Judson  Morris,  or  Jud  Morris,  as  we 
called  him,  a  hunchback,  and  the  son  of  the  proprietor, 
was  a  fairly  sympathetic  and  interesting  friend.  Frank 
Yaisley,  the  brother  of  Dora,  and  two  years  older; 
George  Reed,  since  elevated  to  a  circuit  judgeship  some 
where  in  the  West;  "Mick"  or  Will  McConnell,  who  died 
a  few  years  later  of  lockjaw  contracted  by  accidentally 
running  a  rusty  nail  into  his  foot;  Harry  Croxton,  sub 
sequently  a  mining  engineer  who  died  in  Mexico  and  was 
buried  there,  and  John  and  George  Sharp,  sons  of  the 
local  flour  mill  owner  and  grandnephews  of  my  mother; 
Rutger  Miller,  Orren  Skiff,  and  various  others  were  all 
of  this  group.  There  were  still  others  of  an  older  group 
who  belonged  to  the  best  families  and  somehow  seemed 
to  exchange  courtesies  here  and,  in  addition,  members  of 
a  younger  group  than  ourselves,  who  were  to  succeed  us, 
as  freshman  class  succeeds  freshman  class  at  college. 

My  joy  in  this  small  world  and  these  small  groups  of 
youths,  and  what  the  future  held  in  store  for  us,  was 
very  great.  As  I  figured  it  out,  the  whole  duty  of  men 
was  to  grow,  get  strong,  eat,  drink,  sleep,  get  married, 
have  children  and  found  a  family,  and  so  fulfill  the 
Biblical  injunction  to  "multiply  and  replenish  the  earth." 
Even  at  this  late  date  I  was  dull  to  such  things  as  fame, 
lives  of  artistic  achievement,  the  canniness  and  subtlety 
of  wealth,  and  all  such  things,  although  I  knew  from 
hearing  everyone  talk  that  one  must  and  did  get  rich 
eventually  if  one  amounted  to  anything  at  all.  A  per 
fect,  worldly  wise  dogma,  but  not  truer,  really,  than  any 
other  dogma. 

But  what  a  change  was  here,  not  so  much  materially 
as  spiritually !  Have  you  ever  picked  up  an  empty  beetle 
shell  at  the  end  of  the  summer — that  pale,  transparent 
thing  which  once  held  a  live  and  flying  thing?  Did  it  not 
bring  with  it  a  sense  of  transmutation  and  lapse — the  pass 
ing  of  all  good  things?  Here  was  this  attractive  small 
town,  as  brisk  and  gay  as  any  other,  no  doubt,  but  to  me 
now  how  empty!  Here  in  these  streets,  in  the  two  houses 
in  which  we  had  lived,  in  this  corner  bookstore  and  its 


294  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

adjacent  restaurant,  in  the  West  Ward  and  Central  High 
Schools,  in  the  local  Catholic  Church  where  mass  was 
said  only  once  a  month,  and  in  the  post  office,  swimming 
holes,  and  on  the  lakes  which  surrounded  us  like  gems, 
had  been  spent  the  three  happiest  years  of  my  boyhood. 

Only  the  year  before  we  came  here  I  had  been  taken 
out  of  a  Catholic  school  at  Evansville,  Indiana.  The 
public  school  was  to  me  like  a  paradise  after  the  stern 
religiosity  of  this  other  school.  Education  began  to 
mean  something  to  me.  I  wanted  to  read  and  to 
know.  There  was  a  lovely  simplicity  about  the  whole 
public  school  world  which  had  nothing  binding  or 
driving  about  it.  The  children  were  urged,  coaxed, 
pleaded  with — not  driven.  Force  was  a  last  resort,  and 
rarely  indulged  in.  Can't  you  see  how  it  was  that  I  soon 
fell  half  in  love  with  my  first  teacher,  a  big,  soft,  pink- 
cheeked,  buxom  blonde,  and  with  our  home  and  our  life 
here? 

But  I  was  concerned  now  only  with  this  corner  book 
store  and  how  it  looked  today.  Coming  out  from  New 
York,  I  kept  thinking  how  it  would  look  and  how  the 
square  would  look  and  whether  there  would  be  any  of 
the  old  atmosphere  about  the  schools  or  the  lakes,  or 
our  two  houses,  or  the  houses  of  my  friends,  or  the 
Catholic  Church  or  anything.  I  wanted  to  see  our  ex- 
homes  and  the  schools  and  all  these  things.  Turning 
into  the  square  after  passing  the  first  two  houses  men 
tioned,  I  looked  at  this  corner,  and  here  was  this  new 
bank  building  and  nothing  more.  It  looked  cold  and 
remote.  A  through  car  of  a  state-wide  trolley  system, 
which  ran  all  the  way  from  Michigan  City  and  Gary  on 
Lake  Michigan  to  Indianapolis,  Evansville,  Terre  Haute, 
and  other  places  in  the  extreme  south,  stood  over  the 
way.  There  had  been  no  street  car  of  any  kind  here  in 
my  day.  The  court  house  was  the  same,  the  store  in 
which  Nueweiler's  clothing  store  used  to  be  (and  be 
cause  of  Frank  Nueweiler,  an  elderly  figure  in  "our 
crowd,"  one  of  our  rendezvous)  was  now  a  bookstore, 
the  successor,  really,  to  the  one  I  was  looking  for.  The 


WARSAW  IN  1884-6  295 

post  office  had  been  moved  to  a  new  store  building  erected 
by  the  government.  (I  think  in  every  town  we  passed 
we  had  found  a  new  post  office  erected  by  the  govern 
ment.)  The  Harry  Oram  wagon  works  was  in  exactly 
the  same  position  at  the  northwest  corner  of  the  square, 
only  larger.  There  was  no  trace  of  Epstein's  Wool, 
Hide  and  Tallow  Exchange,  which  had  stood  on  another 
corner  directly  across  the  way  from  the  bookstore.  A 
new  building  had  replaced  that.  All  Epstein's  children 
had  gone  to  Chicago,  so  a  neighboring  hardware  clerk 
told  me,  and  Epstein  himself  had  died  fifteen  years  be 
fore. 

But  what  of  the  Yaisleys?  What  of  the  Yaisleys?  I 
kept  asking  myself  that.  Where  had  they  gone?  To 
satisfy  myself  as  to  that,  before  going  any  farther,  I 
went  into  this  new  bookstore  in  Nueweiler's  old  clothing 
emporium,  and  asked  the  man  who  waited  on  me  while 
I  selected  postcards. 

"What  became  of  the  Nueweilers  who  used  to  run  this 
place  as  a  clothing  store?"  I  asked  as  a  feeler,  before 
going  into  the  more  delicate  matter  of  the  Yaisleys. 

"Nueweiler?"  he  replied,  with  an  air  of  slight  surprise. 
"Why,  he  has  the  dry  goods  store  at  the  next  corner — 
Yaisley's  old  place."  ' 

"Well,  and  what  has  become  of  Yaisley,  then?" 

"Oh,  he  died  all  of  twenty  years  ago.  You  must  be 
quite  a  stranger  about  here." 

"I  am,"  I  volunteered.  "I  used  to  live  here,  but  I 
haven't  been  here  now  for  nearly  thirty  years,  and  that's 
why  I'm  anxious  to  know.  I  used  to  know  Frank  and 
Will  and  Dora  Yaisley,  and  even  her  elder  sister,  Bertha, 
by  sight,  at  least." 

"Oh,  yes,  Will  Yaisley.  There  was  an  interesting 
case  for  you,"  he  observed  reminiscently.  "I  remember 
him,  though  I  don't  remember  the  others  so  well.  1 
only  came  here  in  1905,  and  he  was  back  here  then.  Why, 
he  had  been  out  West  by  then  and  had  come  back  here 
broke.  His  father  was  dead  then,  and  the  rest  of  the 


296  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

family  scattered.  He  was  so  down  and  out  that  he  hung 
around  the  saloons,  doing  odd  jobs  of  cleaning  and  that 
sort  of  thing — and  at  other  times  laid  cement  sidewalks." 

"How  old  was  he  at  that  time,  do  you  think?"  I  in 
quired. 

"Oh,  about  forty,  I  should  say." 

This  unhappy  end  of  Will  Yaisley  was  all  the  more 
startling  when  I  contrasted  it  with  what  I  had  known  of 
him  (1884-1886).  Then  he  was  a  youth  of  twenty  or 
twentyone  or  two,  clerking  in  his  father's  store,  which 
was  the  largest  in  town,  and  living  in  this  fine  house 
which  was  now  a  K.  of  P.  Club.  He  was  brisk  and  stocky 
and  red-headed — his  sister  Dora  had  glints  of  red  in 
her  hair — and,  like  the  rest  of  this  family,  was  vain  and 
supercilious. 

Aphrodite  had  many  devotees  in  this  simple  Christian 
village.  The  soil  of  the  town,  its  lakes  and  groves, 
seemed  to  generate  a  kind  of  madness  in  us  all.  I  recall 
that  during  the  short  time  I  was  there,  there  was  scandal 
after  scandal,  and  seemingly  innocent  sex  attractions, 
which  sprang  up  between  boys  and  girls  whom  I  knew, 
ended  disastrously  after  I  had  departed.  One  of  the 
boys  already  referred  to  was  found,  after  he  was  dead,  to 
have  left  a  pretty,  oversexed  school  girl,  whom  I  also 
knew,  enceinte.  The  son  of  one  of  the  richest  land  own 
ers  and  a  brother  of  a  very  pretty  school  girl  who  sat 
near  me  in  first  year  high,  was  found,  the  year  after  I 
left,  to  have  seduced  a  lovely  tall  girl  with  fair  hair  and 
blue  eyes,  who  lived  only  two  blocks  from  us.  The  story 
went  round  (it  was  retailed  to  me  in  Chicago)  that  she 
got  down  on  her  knees  to  him  (how  should  anyone  have 
seen  her  do  that?)  and  on  his  refusing  to  marry  her, 
committed  suicide  by  swallowing  poison.  Her  death  by 
suicide,  and  the  fact  that  he  had  been  courting  her,  were 
true  enough.  I  personally  know  of  three  other  girls,  all 
beauties,  and  all  feverish  with  desire  (how  keen  is  the 
natural  urge  to  sex!)  who  were  easily  persuaded,  no 
doubt,  and  had  to  be  sent  away  so  that  the  scandal  of 


WARSAW  IN  1884-6  297 

having  a  child  at  home,  without  having  a  husband  to 
vouch  for  it,  might  be  hushed  up. 

Poor,  dogma-bound  humanity!  How  painfully  we 
weave  our  way  through  the  mysteries,  once  desire  has 
trapped  us! 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

THE  OLD    HOUSE 

DORA  YAISLEY  and  her  sister,  insofar  as  I  could  learn 
this  day,  had  fared  no  better  than  some  of  the  others. 
Indeed,  life  had  slipped  along  for  all  and  made  my  gen 
eration,  or  many  of  the  figures  in  it,  at  least,  seem  like 
the  decaying  leaves  that  one  finds  under  the  new  green 
shoots  and  foliage  of  a  later  spring.  Dora  had  married 
a  lawyer  from  some  other  town,  so  my  gossip  believed, 
but  later,  talking  to  another  old  resident  and  one  who 
remembered  me,  I  was  told  that  she  had  run  away  and 
turned  up  married — to  leave  again  and  live  in  another 
place.  As  for  another  beauty  of  my  day,  it  was  said 
that  she  had  been  seen  in  hotels  in  Indianapolis  and  Fort 
Wayne  with  some  man  not  her  husband.  The  book  man 
with  whom  I  first  talked  volunteered  this  information. 

"But  she's  working  now  right  here  in  Warsaw,"  he  vol 
unteered  a  little  later.  "If  you  know  her,  you  might  go 
to  see  her.  I'm  sure  she'd  be  glad  to  see  you.  She  hasn't 
any  relative  around  now." 

"You  don't  say!"  I  exclaimed,  astonished.  "Is  she  as 
good  looking  as  ever?" 

"No,"  he  replied  with  a  faint  wryness  of  expression, 
"she's  not  beautiful  any  more.  She  must  be  over  forty. 
But  she's  a  very  nice  woman.  I  see  her  around  here 
occasionally.  She  goes  regularly  to  my  church." 

After  browsing  here  so  long  with  this  man,  Franklin 
having  gone  to  seek  something  else,  I  returned  to  the 
car  and  requested  that  we  proceed  out  Centre  Street  to 
the  second  house  in  which  we  had  lived — the  Thralls 
Mansion — that  having  been  the  most  important  and  the 
more  picturesque  of  the  two.  On  nearing  it  I  was  again 
surprised  and  indeed  given  a  sharp,  psychic  wrench  which 

298 


THE  OLD  HOUSE  299 

endured  for  hours  and  subsequently  gave  me  a  splitting 
headache.  It  was  not  gone,  oh,  no,  not  the  formal  walls, 
but  everything  else  was.  Formerly,  in  my  day,  there  had 
been  a  large  grove  of  pines  here,  with  interludes,  in  one 
of  which  flourished  five  chestnut  trees,  yielding  us  all 
the  chestnuts  we  could  use ;  in  another  a  group  of  orchard 
trees,  apples,  pears,  peaches,  cherries.  The  house  itself 
stood  on  a  slope  which  led  down  to  a  pond  of  considerable 
size,  on  which  of  a  moonlight  night,  when  our  parents 
would  not  permit  us  to  go  farther,  we  were  wont  to  skate. 
On  the  other  side  of  this  pond,  to  the  southeast  of  it,  was 
a  saw  and  furniture  mill,  and  about  it,  on  at  least  two 
sides,  were  scattered  dozens  upon  dozens  of  oak,  walnut 
and  other  varieties  of  logs,  stored  here  pending  their 
use  in  the  mill.  Jumping  logs  was  a  favorite  sport  of 
all  us  school  boys  from  all  parts  of  the  town — getting 
poles  and  leaping  from  pile  to  pile  like  flying  squirrels. 
It  was  a  regular  Saturday  morning  and  week  day  even 
ing  performance,  until  our  mother's  or  sister's  or  broth 
er's  warning  voices  could  be  heard  calling  us  hence.  From 
my  bedroom  window  on  the  second  floor,  I  could  contem 
plate  this  pond  and  field,  hear  the  pleasant  droning  of  the 
saw  and  planes  of  the  mill,  and  see  the  face  of  the  town 
clock  in  the  court  house  tower,  lighted  at  night,  and  hear 
the  voice  of  its  bell  tolling  the  hours  regularly  day  and 
night. 

This  house  found  and  has  retained  a  place  in  my  af 
fections  which  has  never  been  disturbed  by  any  other — 
and  I  have  lived  in  many.  It  was  so  simple — two  stories 
on  the  north  side,  three  on  the  south,  where  the  hill  de 
clined  sharply,  and  containing  eleven  rooms  and  two 
cellar  rooms,  most  convenient  to  our  kitchen  and  dining- 
room. 

It  was,  as  I  have  said,  a  very  old  house.  Even  when 
we  took  it  age  had  marred  it  considerably.  We  had  to 
replace  certain  window  sashes  and  panes  and  fix  the 
chimney  and  patch  the  roof  in  several  places  where  it 
leaked.  The  stairs  creaked.  Being  almost  entirely  sur 
rounded  by  pines  which  sighed  and  whispered  continu- 


300  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

ally,  it  was  supposed  to  be  damp  but  it  was  not.  In 
grey  or  rainy  weather  the  aspect  of  the  whole  place  was 
solemn,  historic.  In  snowy  or  stormy  weather,  it  took  on 
a  kind  of  patriarchal  significance.  When  the  wind  was 
high  these  thick,  tall  trees  swirled  and  danced  in  a  wild 
ecstasy.  When  the  snow  was  heavy  they  bent  low  with 
their  majestic  plumes  of  white.  Underneath  them  was  a 
floor  of  soft  brown  pine  needles  as  soft  and  brown  as 
a  rug.  We  could  gather  basket  upon  basket  of  resiny 
cones  with  which  to  start  our  morning  fires.  In  spring 
and  summer  these  trees  were  full  of  birds,  the  grackle  of 
blackbird  particularly,  for  these  seemed  to  preempt  the 
place  early  in  March  and  were  inclined  to  fight  others 
for  possession.  Nevertheless,  robins,  bluebirds,  wrens 
and  other  of  the  less  aggressive  feathers  built  their  nests 
here.  I  could  always  tell  when  spring  was  certainly  at 
hand  by  the  noise  made  by  a  tree  full  of  newly  arrived 
blackbirds  on  some  chill  March  morning.  Though  snow 
might  still  be  about,  they  were  strutting  about  on  the 
bits  of  lawn  we  were  able  to  maintain  between  groups  of 
pines,  or  hopping  on  the  branches  of  trees,  rasping  out 
their  odd  speech. 

But  now,  as  we  rolled  out  my  familiar  street,  I  noted 
that  the  sawmill  was  no  longer.  The  furniture  factory 
had  been  converted  into  an  electrical  supply  works.  Fur 
thermore,  the  pond  at  the  foot  of  our  house  was  filled 
up,  not  a  trace  of  it  remaining,  and  all  saw  logs,  of  course, 
long  since  cleaned  away.  Worse  and  worse,  the  pine 
grove  had  disappeared  completely.  In  the  front  or  west 
part  of  our  premises  now  stood  two  new  houses  of  a 
commonplace  character,  with  considerable  lawn  space 
about  them,  but  not  a  tree.  And  there  had  been  so  many 
fine  ones!  Furthermore,  the  ground  about  the  house 
proper  was  stripped  bare,  save  for  one  lone  crab  apple 
tree  which  stood  near  our  north  side  door.  It  was  still 
vigorous,  and  the  ground  under  it  was  littered  with 
bright  red-yellow  crabs  which  were  being  allowed  to  de 
cay.  From  the  front  door,  which  once  looked  out  upon 
a  long  cobble  and  brick  walk,  which  ran  between  double 


THE  OLD  HOUSE  301 

rows  of  pine  trees  to  our  very  distant  gate  (all  gone 
now)  protruded  a  sign  which  read,  "Saws  Filed."  A 
path  ran  from  this  door  southward  over  the  very  pond 
on  which  we  used  to  skate !  Near  at  hand  was  the  "old 
Grant  house"  in  which  we  had  lived  before  we  moved 
into  this  one,  and  it  was  still  there,  only  it  had  been 
moved  over  closer  to  the  school  and  another  house 
crowded  in  beside  it,  on  what  was  once  our  somewhat 
spacious  lawn.  The  old  school  lawn,  which  once  led 
down  to  the  street  that  passed  its  gate,  was  gone,  and 
instead  this  street  came  up  to  the  school  door,  meeting 
the  one  which  had  formerly  passed  our  house  and  ended 
at  a  stile,  giving  on  to  the  school  lawn.  The  school  yard 
trees  were  gone,  and  facing  the  new  street  made  of  the 
old  school  lawn  were  houses.  Only  our  old  Thralls 
house  remained  standing  as  it  was,  on  the  right  hand 
side. 

I  can  only  repeat  that  I  was  psychically  wrenched,  al 
though  I  was  saying  to  myself  that  I  felt  no  least  inter 
est  in  the  visible  scene.  I  had  lived  here,  true,  but  what 
of  it?  There  was  this  of  it,  that  somewhere  down  in 
myself,  far  below  my  surface  emotions  and  my  frothy 
reasoning  faculties,  something  was  hurting.  It  was  not 
I,  exactly.  It  was  like  something  else  that  had  once 
been  me  and  was  still  in  me,  somewhere,  another  person 
or  soul  that  was  grieving,  but  was  now  overlayed  or  shut 
away  like  a  ghost  in  a  sealed  room.  I  felt  it  the  while 
I  bustled  about  examining  this  and  that  detail. 

First  I  went  up  to  the  old  house  and  walked  about  it 
trying  to  replace  each  detail  as  it  was,  and  as  I  did  so, 
restoring  to  my  mind  scene  after  scene  and  mood  after 
mood  of  my  younger  days.  What  becomes  of  old  scenes 
and  old  moods  in  cosmic  substance?  Here  had  been  the 
pump,  and  here  it  was  still,  thank  heaven,  unchanged. 
Here,  under  a  wide-armed  fir  which  once  stood  here,  Ed, 
Al,  Tillie  and  I  had  once  taken  turns  stirring  a  huge  iron 
pot  full  of  apple  butter  which  was  boiling  over  pine 
twigs  and  cones,  and  also  gathered  cones  to  keep  it 
going.  Here,  also,  to  the  right  of  the  front  door  as  you 


302  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

faced  west,  was  my  favorite  lounging  place,  a  hammock 
strung  between  two  trees,  where  of  a  summer  day,  or 
when  the  weather  was  favorable  at  any  time,  I  used  to  lie 
and  read,  looking  up  between  times  through  the  branches 
of  the  trees  to  the  sky  overhead  and  wondering  over  and 
rejoicing  in  the  beauty  of  life.  We  were  poor  in  the 
main,  and,  worse  yet,  because  of  certain  early  errors  of 
some  of  the  children  (how  many  have  I  committed  since !) 
and  the  foolish  imaginings  of  my  parents,  my  father  in 
particular,  we  considered  ourselves  socially  discredited. 
We  hadn't  done  so  well  as  some  people.  We  weren't 
rich.  Some  of  us  hadn't  been  good ! !  But  in  books  and 
nature,  even  at  this  age,  I  managed  to  find  solace  for  all 
our  fancied  shortcomings,  or  nearly  all,  and  though  I 
grieved  to  think  that  we  had  so  little  of  what  seemed  to 
give  others  so  much  pleasure,  and  the  right  to  strut  and 
stare,  I  also  fancied  that  life  must  and  probably  did 
hold  something  better  for  me  than  was  indicated  here. 

After  I  had  made  the  rounds  once,  Franklin  sitting  in 
the  offing  in  his  car  and  sketching  the  house,  I  knocked 
at  the  front  door  and  received  no  answer.  Finally  I  went 
inside  and  knocked  at  the  first  inside  door,  which  orig 
inally  gave  into  our  parlor.  The  place  looked  really 
very  tatterdemalion,  like  an  isolated  Eleventh  Avenue, 
New  York,  tenement.  No  one  answered,  but  finally  from 
what  was  formerly  my  sister  Theresa's  room,  on  the  sec 
ond  floor,  a  stocky  and  somewhat  frowsy  woman  of 
plainly  Slavic  origin  put  her  head  over  the  balustrade 
of  the  handsome  old  carved  walnut  staircase,  and  called, 
"Well?" 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  I  said,  "but  once,  a  number  of 
years  ago,  our  family  used  to  live  in  this  house,  and  I 
have  come  back  to  look  it  over.  Can  you  tell  me  who 
occupies  it  now?" 

"Well,  no  one  family  has  it  now,"  she  replied  pleas 
antly  on  hearing  of  my  mission.  "There  are  four  fam 
ilies  in  it,  two  on  this  floor  up  here,  one  on  that  floor 
(indicating)  and  one  in  the  basement.  The  people  on 
the  first  floor  rent  that  front  room  to  a  boarder." 


THE  OLD  HOUSE  303 

"A  tenement!"  I  exclaimed  to  myself. 

"Well,  there  doesn't  appear  to  be  anyone  at  home 
here,"  I  said  to  her.  "Do  you  mind  if  I  look  at  your 
rooms?  The  room  at  the  end  of  the  hall  there  was  once 
my  sleeping  room." 

"Oh,  not  at  all.  Certainly.  Certainly.  Come  right 
up." 

I  mounted  the  stairs,  now  creakier  than  ever,  and  en 
tered  a  room  which  in  our  day  seemed  comparatively 
well  furnished.  It  was  memorable  to  me  because  of  a 
serious  siege  of  illness  which  my  sister,  Theresa,  had 
undergone  there,  and  because  of  several  nights  in  which 
I  had  tried  to  sit  up  and  keep  watch.  Once  from  this 
room,  at  two  in  the  morning,  I  had  issued  forth  to  find 
our  family  physician,  an  old,  grey-bearded  man,  who, 
once  I  had  knocked  him  up,  came  down  to  his  door, 
lamp  in  hand,  a  long  white  nightgown  protecting  his 
stocky  figure,  his  whiskers  spreading  like  a  sheaf  of 
wheat,  and  demanded  to  know  what  I  meant  by  disturb 
ing  him. 

"But,  doctor,"  I  said  timorously,  "she's  very  sick. 
She  has  a  high  fever.  She  asked  me  to  beg  you  to  come 
right  away." 

"A  high  fever!  Shucks  I  Wasn't  I  just  there  at  four? 
Here  I  am,  an  old  man,  needing  my  sleep,  and  I  never 
get  a  decent  night's  rest.  It's  always  the  way.  As  though 
I  didn't  know.  Suppose  she  has  a  little  fever.  It  won't 
hurt  her." 

"But  will  you  come,  doctor?"  I  pleaded,  knowing  full 
well  that  he  would,  although  he  had  begun  irritably  to 
close  the  door. 

"Yes,  I'll  come.  Of  course  I'll  come,  though  I  know 
it  isn't  a  bit  necessary.  You  run  on  back.  I'll  be  there." 

I  hurried  away  through  the  dark,  a  little  fearful  of 
the  silent  streets,  and  presently  he  came,  fussing  and 
fuming  at  the  inconsiderateness  of  some  people. 

I  always  think  of  old  Dr.  Woolley  as  being  one  of 
the  nicest,  kindest  old  doctors  that  ever  was. 

But  now  this  room,  instead  of  being  a  happy  combina- 


304  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

tion  of  bed  room  and  study,  was  a  kitchen,  dining  room 
and  living  room  combined.  There  were  prints  and  pots 
and  pans  hung  on  the  walls,  and  no  carpet,  and  a  big 
iron  cook  stove  and  a  plain  deal  table  and  various  chairs 
and  boxes,  all  very  humble  and  old.  But  the  place  was 
clean,  I  was  glad  to  see,  and  the  warm,  August  sun  was 
streaming  through  the  west  windows,  a  cheering  sight. 
I  missed  the  sheltering  pine  boughs  outside,  and  was  just 
thinking  "how  different'1  and  asking  myself  "what  is 
time,  anyhow"  when  there  came  up  the  stairs  a  Slavic 
workingman  of  small  but  vigorous  build.  He  had  on 
grey  jean  trousers  and  a  blue  shirt,  and  carried  a  bucket 
and  a  shovel. 

"The  gentleman  once  lived  in  this  house.  He's  come 
back  to  see  it,"  explained  his  wife  courteously. 

"Well,  I  suppose  it's  changed,  eh?"  he  replied. 

"Oh,  very  much,"  I  sighed.  "I  used  to  sleep  in  this 
end  bedroom  as  a  boy." 

"Well,  you'll  find  another  boy  sleeping  there  if  you 
look,"  he  said,  opening  the  door,  and  as  he  did  so  I  saw 
a  small,  chubby,  curly-haired  boy  of  four  or  five  snooz 
ing  on  his  pillow,  his  face  turned  away  from  the  golden 
sun  which  poured  into  the  room.  The  beauty  of  it 
touched  me  deeply.  It  brought  back  the  lapse  of  time 
with  a  crash. 

How  nature  dashes  its  generations  of  new  childhood 
against  the  beaches  of  this  old,  old  world,  I  thought. 
Our  little  day  in  the  sun  is  so  short.  Our  tenure  of  the 
things  of  earth  so  brief.  And  we  fight  over  land  and 
buildings  and  position.  To  my  host  and  hostess  I  said, 
"beautiful,"  and  then  that  whimpering  thing  in  the  sealed 
room  began  to  cry  and  I  hurried  down  the  stairs. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

DAY  DREAMS 

BUT  I  could  not  bear  to  tear  myself  away  so  swiftly. 
I  went  round  to  the  side  door  on  the  north  side,  where 
often  of  a  morning,  before  going  to  school,  or  of  an 
afternoon,  after  school,  or  of  a  Saturday  or  Sunday,  I 
was  wont  to  sit  and  rock  and  look  out  at  the  grass  and 
trees.  As  I  see  it  now,  I  must  have  been  a  very  peculiar 
youth,  a  dreamer,  for  I  loved  to  sit  and  dream  all  the 
while.  Just  outside  this  door  was  the  one  best  patch 
of  lawn  we  possessed,  very  smooth  and  green.  In  late 
October  and  early  November  days  it  was  most  wonder 
ful  to  me  to  sit  and  look  at  the  leaves  falling  from  the 
trees  and  think  on  the  recurrent  spectacles  of  spring,  sum 
mer,  autumn  and  winter,  and  wonder  at  the  beauty  and 
fragrance  and  hope  of  life.  Everything  was  before  me 
then.  That  is  the  great  riches  and  advantage  of  youth. 
Experience  was  still  to  come — love,  travel,  knowledge, 
friends,  the  spectacle  and  stress  of  life.  As  age  creeps 
on  one  says  to  one's  self,  Well,  I  will  never  do  that  any 
more — or  that — or  that.  I  did  it  once,  but  now  it  would 
not  be  interesting.  The  joy  of  its  being  a  new  thing  is 
gone  once  and  for  all. 

And  so  now,  as  I  looked  at  this  door,  the  thought  of 
all  this  came  upon  me  most  forcibly.  I  could  actually 
see  myself  sitting  there  in  an  old  rocking  chair,  with 
my  books  on  my  knees,  waiting  to  hear  the  last  school 
bell  ring,  which  would  give  me  just  fifteen  minutes  in 
which  to  get  to  school.  It  was  all  so  perfect.  Knowledge 
was  such  a  solution — were  they  not  always  telling  me  so? 
If  one  studied  one  could  find  out  about  life,  I  thought. 
Somebody  must  know.  Somebody  did  know.  Weren't 
there  books  here  on  every  hand,  and  schools  and  teachers 
to  teach  us? 

305 


306  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

i 

And  there  was  my  mother,  slipping  about  in  her  old 
grey  dress  working  for  us,  for  me,  and  wishing  so  wist 
fully  that  life  might  do  better  for  us  all.  ^  What  a  won 
derful  woman  she  was,  and  how  I  really  adored  her — 
only  I  think  she  never  quite  understood  me,  or  what  I 
represented.  She  was  so  truly  earnest  in  her  efforts  for 
us  all,  so  eager  for  more  life  for  each  and  every  one.  I 
can  see  her  now  with  her  large,  round  grey  eyes,  her 
placid  face,  her  hopeful,  wistful,  tender  expression! 
Dear,  dear  soul!  Sweet  dreamer  of  vagrom  dreams! 
In  my  heart  is  an  altar.  It  is  of  jasper  and  chalcedony 
and  set  with  precious  stones.  Before  it  hangs  a  light, 
the  lamp  of  memory,  and  to  that  casket  which  holds  your 
poet's  soul,  I  offer,  daily,  attar  and  bergamot  and  musk 
and  myrrh.  As  I  write,  you  must  know.  As  I  write, 
you  must  understand.  Your  shrine  is  ever  fragrant  here. 

Inside  this  door,  when  I  knocked,  I  found  a  two-room 
apartment  not  much  better  than  that  of  my  Slavic  friends 
upstairs.  Although  the  young  married  woman,  a  mere 
girl,  who  opened  the  door,  spoke  English  plainly,  she 
seemed  of  marked  Hungarian  extraction,  an  American 
revision  of  the  European  peasant,  but  with  most  of  the 
old  world  worn  off.  I  had  never  been  familiar  with  this 
type  in  my  day.  There  was  a  baby  here  and  a  clutter 
of  nondescript  things — colored  calendars  and  chromos 
on  the  walls;  clap-trap  instalment-sold  furniture  and 
the  like.  I  made  my  very  best  bow,  which  is  never  a 
very  graceful  one,  and  explained  why  I  was  here.  The 
young  woman  was  sympathetic.  Wouldn't  I  come  right 
in? 

"So  this  is  the  room,"  I  said,  standing  in  the  first  one. 
"My  mother  used  to  use  this  as  a  living  room,  and  this 
(I  walked  into  the  next  one,  looking  south  over  the 
vanished  pond  to  the  courthouse  tower)  as  a  sewing 
room.  There  was  always  such  a  fine  morning  light 
here." 

"Yes,  there  is,"  she  replied. 

As  I  stood  here,  a  host  of  memories  crowded  upon 
me.  I  might  as  well  have  been  surrounded  by  spirits  of 


DAY  DREAMS  307 

an  older  day  suggesting  former  things.  There  sat  my 
father  by  that  window,  reading,  in  the  morning,  when  he 
was  not  working,  the  Lives  of  the  Saints;  in  the  even 
ing  the  Chicago  Dally  News  or  Die  Wahrheit's  Freund, 
issued  in  Cincinnati,  or  Die  Waisenfreund,  issued  in  Day 
ton.  A  hardy,  industrious  man  he  was,  so  religious  that 
he  was  ridiculous  to  me  even  at  that  time.  He  carried 
no  weight  with  me,  though  he  had  the  power  and  au 
thority  to  make  me  and  nearly  all  the  others  obey.  I 
was  aways  doubtful  as  to  just  how  far  his  temper  and 
fuming  rages  would  carry  him.  As  for  my  mother,  she 
usually  sat  in  a  rocking  chair  close  to  this  very  north 
door,  which  looked  out  on  the  grass,  to  read.  Her 
favorite  publications  were  Leslie's  Magazine  and  Godey's 
Lady  Book,  or  some  of  the  newer  but  then  not  startlingly 
brilliant  magazines — Scribner's  or  Harper's.  For  my 
part  I  preferred  Truth,  or  Life,  or  Puck,  or  Judge,  pub 
lications  which  had  been  introduced  into  our  family  by 
my  brother  Paul  when  we  were  living  in  Evansville.  At 
this  time  I  had  found  Dickens,  Scott,  Thackeray,  Haw 
thorne,  Fielding,  Defoe,  and  a  score  of  others,  and  had 
been  reading,  reading,  reading,  swiftly  and  with  enjoy 
ment.  Cooper,  Irving  and  Lew  Wallace  ("Ben  Hur"  at 
least)  were  a  part  of  my  mental  pabulum.  From  the 
public  library  I  drew  Dryden,  Pope,  Shakespeare,  Her- 
rick  and  a  dozen  other  English  and  American  poets,  and 
brought  them  here.  I  was  so  keenly  interested  in  love 
at  this  time — so  inoculated  with  the  virus  of  the  ideal  in 
the  shape  of  physical  beauty — that  any  least  passage  in 
Dryden,  Herrick,  Pope,  Shakespeare,  held  me  as  in  a 
vise.  I  loved  the  beauty  of  girls.  A  face  piquant  in 
its  delicacy,  with  pink  cheeks,  light  or  dark  eyes,  long 
lashes — how  I  tingled  at  the  import  of  it !  Girlhood  rav 
ished  me.  It  set  my  brain  and  my  blood  aflame.  I  was 
living  in  some  ecstatic  realm  which  had  little  if  anything 
in  common  with  the  humdrum  life  about  me,  and  yet  it 
had.  Any  picture  or  paragraph  anywhere  which  referred 
to  or  hinted  at  love  lifted  me  up  into  the  empyrean.  I 
was  like  that  nun  in  Davidson's  poem  to  whom  the 


3o8  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

thought  of  how  others  sinned  was  so  moving.  I  never 
tired  of  hauling  out  and  secretly  reading  and  rereading 
every  thought  and  sentence  that  had  a  suggestive,  poetic 
turn  in  relation  to  love. 

I  can  see  some  asinine  moralist  now  preparing  to  rise 
and  make  a  few  remarks.  My  comment  is  that  I  despise 
the  frozen,  perverted  religiosity  which  would  make  a  sin 
of  sex.  Imagine  the  torture,  the  pains,  the  miseries 
which  have  ensued  since  self  immolation  has  been  raised 
to  a  virtue  and  a  duty.  Think  of  it — healthy  animals  all 
of  us,  or  we  ought  to  be — and  it  is  a  crime  to  think  of 
love  and  sex! 


CHAPTER    XXXIX 

THE  KISS  OF  FAIR  GUSTA 

STANDING  in  this  room,  looking  at  the  place  where  our 
open  fire  used  to  be,  but  which  was  now  closed  up  and 
a  cooking  stove  substituted,  and  at  the  window  where  I 
often  sat  of  a  morning  "studying"  history,  physical  geog 
raphy,  geography,  physiology,  botany,  and  waiting  for 
breakfast,  or  if  it  were  afternoon  and  after  school,  for 
dinner,  I  asked  myself,  if  I  could,  would  I  restore  it  all 
— and  my  answer  was  unhesitatingly  yes.  I  have  seen 
a  great  many  things  in  my  time,  done  a  lot  of  dull  ones, 
suffered  intense  shames,  disgraces  and  privations,  but 
all  taken  into  account  and  notwithstanding,  I  would  gladly 
be  born  again  and  do  it  all  over,  so  much  have  I  loved 
the  life  I  have  been  permitted  to  live.  Here,  at  this 
time,  I  was  suffering  from  a  boyish  bashfulness  which 
made  me  afraid  of  every  girl.  I  was  following  this 
girl  and  that,  nearly  every  beautiful  one  of  my  own  age, 
with  hungry  eyes,  too  timid  to  speak,  and  yet  as  much 
as  I  longed  and  suffered  on  that  account,  I  now  said  to 
myself  I  would  gladly  have  it  all  back.  I  asked  myself 
would  I  have  mother  and  father,  and  my  sisters  and 
brothers,  and  all  our  old  relatives  and  friends  back  as 
I  knew  them  here,  and  my  answer  was,  if  it  would  not  be 
an  injustice  to  them,  and  if  I  could  be  as  I  was  then  and 
stand  in  the  same  unwitting  relationship,  yes.  Life  was 
intensely  beautiful  to  me  here.  For  all  its  drawbacks  of 
money  and  clothes  and  friends  it  was  nearly  perfect.  I 
was  all  but  too  happy,  ecstatic,  drunk  with  the  spirit  of 
all  young  and  new  things.  If  I  were  to  have  even  more 
pain  than  I  had,  I  think  I  would  undertake  it  all  gladly 
again. 

The  woman  who  permitted  me  to  linger  in  these  two 

309 


3io  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

rooms  a  few  minutes  informed  me  that  the  man  who 
occupied  the  rooms  just  overhead — those  back  of  the 
day  laborer — was  the  same  whose  sign,  "Saws  Filed," 
protruded  from  the  front  door.  "It's  Mr.  Gridley  and 
his  boy.  He  isn't  in  yet,  I  think.  He  usually  comes  in, 
though,  about  this  time.  If  you  want  to  wait,  I'm  sure 
he'll  be  glad  to  let  you  see  his  rooms." 

She  spoke  as  if  she  knew  Mr.  Gridley,  and  I  had  the 
feeling  from  her  very  assuring  words  that  he  must  be  a 
pleasant  and  accommodating  character. 

As  I  went  out  and  around  to  the  front  door  again  to 
have  one  more  look,  I  saw  an  old  man  approaching  across 
the  quondam  pond,  carrying  a  small  saw,  and  I  felt  sure, 
at  sight  of  him,  that  it  was  Mr.  Gridley.  He  was  tall, 
emaciated,  stoop  shouldered,  a  pleasant  and  even  con 
ciliatory  type,  whose  leathern  cheeks  and  sunken  eyes  com 
bined  with  a  simple,  unaffected  and  somewhat  tired  man 
ner  seemed  to  suggest  one  to  whom  life  had  done  much, 
but  whose  courage,  gentleness  and  patience  were  not  by 
any  means  as  yet  exhausted.  As  he  came  up  I  observed: 
"This  isn't  Mr.  Gridley,  is  it?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  he  smiled.     "What  can  I  do  for  you?" 

"You  live  in  the  rear  rooms  upstairs,  I  believe.  My 
family  used  to  live  here,  years  ago.  I  wonder  if  you 
would  mind  my  looking  in  for  a  moment.  I  merely  want 
to  see — for  old  time's  sake." 

His  face  warmed  sympathetically. 

"Come  right  up,  neighbor,"  he  volunteered.  "I'll  be 
only  too  glad  to  let  you  see.  You'll  have  to  excuse  the 
looks  of  the  place.  My  son  and  I  live  here  alone,  bach 
elor  style.  I've  been  out  in  the  country  today  with  him 
hunting.  He's  only  fifteen  years  old." 

We  ascended  the  stairs,  and  he  unlocked  the  door  to 
my  old  rooms  and  let  me  in — the  rooms  where  Ed  and 
I  and  Tillie  (or  whichever  other  brother  or  sister  hap 
pened  to  be  here  at  the  time)  were  separately  provided 
for.  It  was  a  suite  of  three  rooms,  one  large  and  two 
small,  opening  out  on  the  north,  east,  and  south,  via  win 
dows  to  the  garden  below.  In  summer,  and  even  in  win- 


THE  KISS  OF  FAIR  GUSTA  311 

ter,  these  rooms  were  always  ideal,  warmed  as  they  were 
by  an  open  fire,  but  in  summer  they  were  especially  cool 
and  refreshing,  there  being  an  attic  above  which  broke 
the  heat — delightful  chambers  in  which  to  read  or  sleep. 
We  never  had  much  furniture  (a  blessing,  I  take  it,  be 
cause  of  the  sense  of  space  which  results)  but  what  we 
had  was  comfortable  enough  and  ample  for  all  our  needs. 
In  my  day  there  was  a  bed  and  a  dressing  stand  and 
mirror  in  each  of  these  rooms,  and  then  chairs,  and  in 
the  larger  room  of  the  three,  quite  double  the  size  of  the 
other  two,  a  square  reading  table  of  cheap  oak  by  which 
I  used  to  sit  and  work  at  times,  getting  my  lessons.  In 
the  main  it  was  a  delight  to  sit  here  of  a  hot  summer 
day,  looking  out  on  the  surrounding  world  and  the  trees, 
and  reading  betimes.  Here  I  read  Shakespeare  and  a 
part  of  Macaulay's  "History  of  England"  and  Taine's 
"History  of  English  Literature"  and  a  part  of  Guizot's 
"History  of  France."  I  was  not  an  omnivorous  reader — 
just  a  slow,  idle,  rambling  one — but  these  rooms  and  these 
books,  and  the  thought  of  happy  days  to  come,  made  it 
all  a  wonder  world  to  me.  We  had  enough  to  live  on. 
The  problem  of  financing  our  lives  was  not  as  yet  dis 
tracting  me.  I  longed  for  a  little  money,  but  not  much, 
and  life,  life,  life — all  its  brilliant  pyrotechnic  meanings 
— was  before  me,  still  to  come. 

"It's  not  very  tidy  in  here,"  said  my  host,  apologet 
ically,  as  he  opened  the  door.  "Take  a  chair,  neighbor. 
We  live  as  though  we  were  camping  out.  Ever  since  my 
wife  died  and  my  oldest  boy  went  into  the  navy,  I  stopped 
trying  to  keep  house  much.  Me  and  Harry — that's  my 
youngest  boy — take  pot  luck  here.  We  do  our  own  house 
keeping.  I've  just  suffered  a  great  blow  in  the  death  of 
my  oldest  boy  over  at  the  Dardanelles.  When  he  left 
the  navy  he  went  into  the  Australian  Army,  and  they 
made  him  a  captain  and  then  when  this  war  broke  out 
his  company  was  sent  to  the  Dardanelles  and  he  went 
along  and  has  just  been  killed  over  there." 

"It's  very  sad,"  I  said,  looking  about  at  the  beggarly 
and  disorderly  furniture.  In  one  room  I  could  see  a 


312  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

shabbily  gotten  up  and  unmade  bed.  In  this  room  was 
an  iron  cook  stove,  pots  and  pans,  a  litter  of  guns,  saws, 
fishing  poles,  and  the  like. 

"Yes,"  went  on  my  host  heavily,  and  with  a  keen  nar 
rative  sense  which  was  very  pleasing  to  listen  to,  "he  was 
an  extra  fine  boy,  really.  He  graduated  here  at  the  high 
school  before  he  went  into  the  marines,  and  stood  high 
in  all  his  classes.  Everybody  liked  him, — a  nice,  straight- 
talking  young  fellow,  if  I  do  say  it." 

He  arose,  crossed  to  an  old  yellow  bureau,  and  took 
out  a  picture  of  a  young  fellow  of  about  twentysix  or 
twentyeight,  in  the  uniform  of  an  Australian  captain  of 
infantry. 

"The  way  he  came  to  get  into  the  Australian  Army," 
he  went  on,  looking  fondly  at  the  picture,  "was — he  was 
over  there  with  one  of  our  ships  and  they  took  a  liking  to 
him  and  offered  him  more  pay.  He  was  always  a  great 
fellow  for  athletics  and  he  used  to  send  me  pictures  of 
himself  as  amateur  champion  of  this  or  that  ship,  boxing. 
They  got  his  regiment  over  there  on  that  peninsula,  and 
just  mowed  it  down,  I  hear.  You  know,"  he  said  sud 
denly,  his  voice  beginning  to  tremble  and  break,  "I  just 
can't  believe  it.  I  had  a  letter  from  him  only  three  weeks 
ago  saying  how  fine  he  was  feeling,  and  how  interesting 
it  all  was. — And  now  he's  dead." 

A  hot  tear  fell  on  a  wrinkled  hand. 

"Yes,  I  know,"  I  replied,  moved  at  last.  I  had  been 
so  interested  in  my  own  connection  with  this  place  and  the 
memories  that  were  swarming  upon  me  that  I  had  been 
overlooking  his.  I  now  felt  very  sorry  for  him. 

"You  know,"  he  persisted,  surveying  me  with  aged 
and  wrinkled  eyes,  "he  wasn't  just  an  ordinary  boy.  I 
have  letters  here" — and  now  he  fumbled  around  for 
something  else — "from  Lord  Kitchener  and  the  King  and 
Queen  of  England  and  the  Colonel  of  his  regiment." 
(His  voice  broke  completely,  but  after  a  time  he  went 
on:)  "They  all  said  what  a  fine  fellow  he  was  and  what 
a  loss  his  death  is.  It's  pretty  hard  when  you're  so  fond 
of  anybody." 


THE  KISS  OF  FAIR  GUSTA  313 

He  stopped,  and  I  had  difficulty  in  restraining  a  ten 
dency  to  cry  a  little  myself.  When  one  gets  so  old  and 
a  boy  is  so  precious ! 

He  rubbed  his  nose  with  the  back  of  his  hand,  while  I 
read  the  formal  acknowledgments  of  Colonel  Barclay 
Sattersley,  D.S.O.,  of  Field  Marshal  Earl  Kitchener, 
K.G.,  Secretary  of  State  for  War,  and  of  Their  Majes 
ties,  the  King  and  Queen,  formal  policy  letters  all,  in 
tended  to  assuage  all  brokenhearted  contributors  to  the 
great  war.  But  it  all  rang  very  futile  and  hollow  to  me. 
The  phrases  of  the  ruling  classes  of  England  rattle  like 
whitening  bones  of  dead  souls,  anyhow. 

"You  know,"  he  added,  after  a  time,  "I  can't  help 
thinking  that  there's  been  an  awful  mistake  made  about 
that  whole  thing  down  there.  His  letters  told  me  what 
a  hard  time  they  had  landing,  and  how  the  trenches  were 
just  full  of  dead  boys  after  every  charge.  It  seems  to 
me  they  might  have  found  some  other  way.  It  looks  ter 
ribly  heartless  to  let  whole  regiments  be  wiped  out." 

I  learned  a  great  deal  about  Warsaw  and  its  environs 
from  this  man,  for  he  had  lived  in  this  county  and  near 
here  all  his  life.  This  house,  as  he  described  it,  had 
been  here  since  1848  or  thereabouts.  The  original 
owner  and  builder  had  been  a  judge  at  one  time,  but  a 
loss  of  fortune  and  ill  health  had  compelled  him  to  part 
with  it.  His  oldest  and  most  intelligent  sen  had  been 
a  wastrel.  He  occasionally  came  to  Warsaw  to  look  at 
this  very  house,  as  he  had  once,  in  our  day,  and  to  my 
surprise  he  told  me  he  was  here  now,  in  town,  loafing 
about  the  place — an  old  man.  The  houses  in  front  had 
been  built  only  a  year  before,  so  if  I  had  come  a  year 
earlier  I  would  still  have  seen  the  ground  space  about  as 
it  was,  all  the  old  trees  still  standing.  The  trees  had  all 
been  cut  down  thirteen  months  before!  The  Grant 
house,  in  which  we  had  first  lived  here,  had  been  moved 
over  about  five  years  before.  The  school  yard  had  been 
cut  away  about  seven  years  before,  and  so  it  went.  I 
asked  him  about  George  and  John  Sharp,  Odin  Old- 
father,  Pet  Wall,  Vesta  Switzer,  Myrtle  Taylor,  Judson 


314  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

Morris,  and  so  on — boys  and  girls  with  whom  I  had  gone 
to  school.  Of  some  he  knew  a  little  something;  of  others 
he  imagined  his  youngest  boy  Harry  might  know. 
Through  his  eyes  and  his  words  I  began  to  see  what  a 
long  way  I  had  come,  and  how  my  life  was  rounding  out 
into  something  different  and  disturbingly  remote  from 
all  I  had  ever  known.  I  felt  as  though  I  were  in  a  tomb 
or  a  garden  of  wraiths  and  shadows. 

But  if  I  was  depressed  here,  I  was  even  more  so  when 
I  came  to  study  the  Grant  house  and  the  school  itself. 
The  former  having  been  inhabited  when  my  mind  was 
in  its  most  formative  period,  I  was  struck  by  the  fact 
that  nearly  all  its  then  pleasing  traces  had  been  obliter 
ated.  There  was  a  tree  outside  the  kitchen  door  from 
which  a  swing  had  once  been  suspended,  and  where  of  a 
morning  or  an  evening  I  used  to  sit  and  meditate,  ad 
miring  the  skies,  the  schoolhouse  tower,  the  trees,  the 
freshness  of  the  year.  Swing  and  tree  were  gone,  the 
house  having  been  moved,  and  even  a  longish,  parallel 
window  through  which,  so  often,  I  could  see  my  mother 
cooking  or  working  at  something  in  the  kitchen,  had 
been  done  over  into  something  else  and  was  now  no  more. 
There  had  been  a  medium  sized,  handsome  spear  pine  in 
the  shade  of  which  I  used  to  lie  and  read  of  a  summer 
("Water  Babies,"  "Westward  Ho,"  "The  Scarlet  Let 
ter"  and  "The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,"  to  say  noth 
ing  of  much  of  Irving  and  Goldsmith) .  It  was  gone.  It 
was  around  this  tree  that  once,  of  a  late  November 
evening  not  long  after  we  had  arrived  here  and  I  had 
been  placed  in  the  public  school,  that  I  was  chased  by 
Augusta  Nueweiler  (the  daughter  of  the  clothier  who 
now  owned  the  dry  goods  store  once  owned  by  Yaisley) 
in  a  determined  desire  to  kiss  me;  which  she  succeeded 
in  doing.  If  you  will  believe  it,  although  I  was  thirteen 
years  of  age,  I  had  never  been  kissed  before.  Why  she 
had  been  attracted  to  me  I  do  not  know.  She  was 
plump  and  pretty,  with  a  cap  of  short,  dark  ringlets 
swirling  about  her  eyes  and  ears,  and  a  red  and  brown 


THE  KISS  OF  FAIR  GUSTA  315 

complexion,  and  an  open,  pretty  mouth.  I  thought  she 
was  very  beautiful. 

Back  of  this  house  had  been  a  large  garden  or  truck 
patch,  which  we  planted  richly  that  first  summer,  and 
back  of  that  again,  a  grove  of  tall  ash  trees  two  acres  in 
extent.  To  this,  during  that  first  summer  and  winter,  I 
had  been  wont  to  repair  in  order  to  climb  the  trees  and 
look  out  upon  a  large  marsh  (it  seemed  large  to  me  at 
that  time)  which  contained,  as  its  principal  feature,  the 
winding  Tippecanoe  River  or  creek,  making  silvery  S's 
between  the  tall  sedges  and  their  brown  cat  tails.  It  was 
a  delightful  sight  to  me  then.  I  used  to  climb  so  high 
(all  alone  and  often)  that  the  wind  would  easily  rock 
the  tall  spear  to  which  I  was  clinging,  and  then  it  seemed 
as  though  I  were  a  part  of  heaven  and  the  winds  and  all 
rhythmic  and  colorful  elements  above  man — elements 
which  had  no  part  or  share  with  him. 

It  was  to  this  grove  that  my  brother  Ed  and  I  once 
repaired  of  a  Saturday  morning  after  a  Friday  night 
party — our  very  first — at  which  a  kissing  game  had  been 
played  and  we  had  been  kissed.  Life  was  just  dawning 
upon  us  as  a  garden  of  flowers,  in  which  girls  were  the 
flowers.  We  had  already  been  commenting  on  various 
girls  at  school  during  the  past  two  or  three  months, 
learning  to  talk  about  and  discriminate  between  them, 
and  now,  at  this  party,  given  at  the  house  of  one  girl 
whom  I  thought  to  be  the  most  perfect  of  all,  we  had 
been  able  to  see  twenty  or  thirty,  decked  in  fineries  so 
delicate  and  entrancing,  that  I  was  quite  beside  myself. 
All  the  girls,  really,  that  we  had  come  to  single  out  as 
beautiful  were  there — wonderful  girls,  to  my  entranced 
eyes — and  each  of  us,  as  it  happened,  had  been  called  in 
to  be  kissed  by  girls  to  whom  we  had  scarce  dared  to  lift 
our  eyes  before.  It  was  all  in  the  game,  and  not  to  be 
repeated  afterward.  The  moralists  tell  us  that  such 
games  are  pernicious  and  infective  in  their  influence,  but 
to  memory  they  are  entrancing.  Whatever  it  is  that  is 
making  life — throwing  us  on  a  screen  of  ether  quite  as 
moving  pictures  are  thrown  on  canvas,  to  strut  through 


3i6  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

our  little  parts — its  supremest  achievements,  so  far,  are 
occasions  such  as  I  have  been  describing — moments  in 
which  the  blood  of  youth  in  a  boy  speaks  to  its  fellow 
atoms  in  the  body  of  a  girl  and  produces  that  astonishing 
reaction  which  causes  the  cheeks  to  mantle,  the  eyes  to 
sparkle  or  burn,  the  heart  to  beat  faster,  the  lungs  to 
become  suffocatingly  slow  in  their  labors. 

On  this  particular  morning,  sitting  in  this  grove  now 
no  longer  present  and  sawing  a  log  of  wood  which  was 
ours,  Ed  and  I  tried  to  recall  how  wonderful  it  had  been 
and  how  we  felt,  but  it  was  scarcely  possible.  It  could 
not  be  done.  Instead,  we  merely  glowed  and  shivered 
with  the  memory  of  intense  emotions.  And  today  it 
comes  back  as  astonishing  and  perfect  as  ever — a  chemi 
cal  state,  a  rich,  phantasmagoric  memory,  and  never  to 
be  recaptured.  I  have  changed  too  much.  All  of  us  of 
that  day  have  changed  too  much. 

I  saw  Ed  on  the  street  not  long  ago  and  his  hair  was 
slightly  grey  and  he  was  heavy  and  mature.  Having 
been  here,  I  was  tempted  to  ask  him  whether  he  remem 
bered,  but  I  refrained  because  I  half  fancied  that  he 
would  not,  or  that  he  would  comment  on  it  from  a  lately 
acquired  religious  point  of  view — and  then  we  might 
have  quarreled. 


CHAPTER   XL 

OLD    HAUNTS   AND    OLD   DREAMS 

BUT  the  school  next  door  gave  me  the  cruellest  shock 
of  all.  I  went  into  it  because,  it  being  mid  August,  the 
preliminary  autumn  repairs  were  under  way  and  the 
place  was  open.  Workingmen  were  scattered  about — 
carpenters,  painters,  glaziers.  I  had  no  idea  how  sound 
my  memory  was  for  these  old  scenes  until  I  stepped  in 
side  the  door  and  saw  the  closets  where  we  used  to  hang 
our  hats  and  coats  on  our  nails  and  walked  up  the  stairs 
to  the  seventh  grade  room,  which  is  the  one  in  which  I 
had  been  placed  on  our  arrival  in  Warsaw. 

Here  it  was,  just  as  I  had  left  it,  apparently — the  same 
walls,  the  same  benches,  the  same  teacher's  table.  But 
how  small  the  benches  had  grown,  scarcely  large  enough 
for  me  to  squeeze  into  now,  even  though  I  allowed  for 
a  tight  fit!  The  ceiling  and  walls  seemed  not  nearly  so 
high  or  so  far  as  they  had  once  seemed.  At  that  very 
table  sat  Mae  Calvert,  our  teacher — dead  now,  so  some 
one  told  me  later — a  blooming  girl  of  nineteen  or  twenty 
who  at  that  time  seemed  one  of  the  most  entrancing  crea 
tures  in  all  the  world.  She  had  such  fine  blue  eyes,  such 
light  brown  hair,  such  a  rounded,  healthy,  vigorous  body. 
And  she  had  been  so  fond  of  me.  Once,  sitting  at  my  little 
desk  (it  was  the  fifth  from  the  front  in  the  second  aisle, 
counting  from  the  west  side  of  the  room),  she  paused 
and  put  her  hand  on  my  head  and  cheek,  pinching  my 
neck  and  ear,  and  I  colored  the  while  I  thrilled  with 
pleasure.  You  see,  hitherto,  I  had  been  trained  in  a 
Catholic  school,  what  little  I  had  been,  and  the  process 
had  proved  most  depressing — black  garbed,  straight 
laced  nuns.  But  here  in  this  warm,  friendly  room,  with 
girls  who  were  attractive  and  boys  who  were  for  the 

317 


318  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

larger  part  genial  and  companionable,  and  with  a  teacher 
who  took  an  interest  in  me,  I  felt  as  though  I  were  in  a 
kind  of  school  paradise,  the  Nirvana  of  the  compulsorily 
trained. 

Another  time  (it  was  in  reading  class)  she  asked  me 
to  read  a  paragraph  and  when  I  had  and  paused,  she 
said:  "I  can't  tell  you  how  beautifully  you  read,  Theo 
dore.  It  is  so  natural;  you  make  everything  so  real." 
I  blushed  again,  for  I  felt  for  the  moment  by  some  odd 
transposition  that  she  was  making  fun  of  me.  When  I 
looked  up  into  her  face  and  saw  her  eyes — the  way  in 
which  she  looked  at  me — I  understood.  She  was  actually 
fond  of  me. 

At  later  times  and  in  various  ways  during  this  year 
she  drew  me  out  of  an  intense  dreamy  shyness  by  watch 
ing  over  me,  expending  an  affection  which  I  scarcely 
knew  how  to  take.  She  would  occasionally  keep  me  after 
school  to  help  me  with  my  grammar — a  profound  mys 
tery,  no  least  rudiment  of  which  I  ever  mastered — and 
when  she  gradually  discovered  that  I  knew  absolutely 
nothing  concerning  it,  she  merely  looked  at  me  and 
pinched  my  cheek. 

"Well,  don't  you  worry;  you  can  get  along  without 
grammar  for  a  while  yet.  You'll  understand  it  later 


on." 


She  passed  me  in  all  my  examinations,  regardless  I 
presume,  though  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  I  was 
highly  intelligent  in  respect  to  some  things.  At  the  end 
of  the  year,  when  we  were  clearing  up  our  papers  and  I 
was  getting  ready  to  leave,  she  put  her  arms  about  me 
and  kissed  me  goodbye.  I  remember  the  day,  the  warm, 
spring  sunlit  afternoon,  the  beauty  and  the  haunting  sense 
of  the  waning  of  things  that  possessed  me  at  the  time. 
I  went  home,  to  think  and  wonder  about  her. 

I  saw  her  a  year  or  so  later,  a  much  stouter  person, 
married  and  with  a  baby,  and  I  remember  being  very 
shocked.  She  didn't  seem  the  same,  but  she  remembered 
me  and  smiled  on  me.  For  my  part,  not  having  seen  her 
for  so  long  a  time,  I  felt  very  strange  and  bashful — 


OLD   HAUNTS  AND   OLD    DREAMS     319 

almost  as  though  I  were  in  the  presence  of  one  I  had 
never  known. 

But  the  feeling  which  I  had  here  today  passed  over 
this  last  unheeded.  It  concerned  only  the  particular  days 
in  which  I  was  here,  the  days  of  a  new  birth  and  freedom 
from  horrific  Spartan  restraint,  plus  the  overawing 
weight  of  the  lapse  of  time.  Never  before  I  think,  cer 
tainly  not  since  my  mother's  death,  was  I  so  impressed 
by  the  lapse  of  time,  the  diaphanous  nothingness  of 
things.  I  was  here  thirtytwo  years  before  and  all  that  I 
saw  then  had  body  and  substance — a  glaring  material 
state.  Here  was  some  of  the  same  material,  the  same 
sunlight,  a  few  of  the  same  people,  perhaps,  but  time  had 
filched  away  nearly  all  our  characteristics.  That  boy — 
was  his  spiritual  substance  inside  of  me  still  unchanged, 
merely  overlaid  by  experience  like  the  heart  of  a  palm? 
I  could  not  even  answer  that  to  myself.  The  soul  within 
me  could  not  say.  And  at  least  foursevenths  of  my 
allotted  three  score  years  and  ten  had  gone. 

Down  the  street  from  this  school  about  five  doors  was 
another  house  which  was  very  familiar.  I  went  up  the 
narrow  brick  walk  and  knocked.  A  tall,  lean,  sallow 
creature  of  no  particular  figure  but  with  piercing  black 
eyes  and  long,  thin  hands  came  to  the  door.  Her  hair, 
once  jet  black,  was  thinly  streaked  with  grey.  She  must 
have  been  ill  of  thirtyfive  or  forty  when  I  knew  her  as 
a  boy.  That  made  her  sixtyfive  or  seventy  now;  yet  I 
could  see  no  particular  change,  so  vigorous  and  energetic 
was  she. 

"Well,  Ed,"  she  exclaimed,  "or  is  it  Theodore?  Well, 
of  all  things !  Come  right  in  here.  I'm  glad  to  see  you. 
Land  o'  goodness!  And  Nate  will  be  pleased  to  death. 
Nate!  Nate!"  she  called  into  an  adjoining  room.  "Come 
in  here.  If  here  isn't  Theodore — or  is  it  Ed?"  ("It's 
Theodore,"  I  interjected  quickly.)  "You  know  it's  been 
so  long  since  I've  seen  you  two  I  can  scarcely  tell  you 
apart.  But  I  remember  both  as  well  as  if  it  were  yester 
day.  And  it's  been — let  me  see — how  long  has  it  been? 
Nearly  thirty  years  now,  hasn't  it?  Well,  of  all  things! 


320  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

I  do  declare  !  And  you're  getting  stout,  too.  And  youVe 
grown  to  be  over  six  feet,  at  least.  Well,  I  do  declare ! 
To  think  of  your  walking  in  on  me  like  this.  Just  you  sit 
right  down  here  and  make  yourself  comfortable.  Well, 
of  all  things!" 

By  now  I  must  have  been  smiling  like  a  Cheshire  cat. 

Nate,  or  Nathaniel,  one-time  carpenter  and  builder 
(and  still  such,  for  all  I  know),  strolled  in.  It  was  late 
in  the  afternoon,  and  he  was  lounging  about  in  a  white 
cotton  shirt  and  grey  trousers,  his  suspenders  down  about 
his  hips,  a  pipe  in  his  mouth  and  an  evening  paper  in  his 
hand. 

"Well,  Dorse,"  he  called,  "where  do  you  come  from?" 

I  told  him. 

"Think  of  that,  now,"  exclaimed  Mrs.  McConnell, 
uand  a  car!  And  you  came  all  the  way  through  from 
New  York?  Well,  lots  of  them  do  that  now.  Charlie 
Diggers  went  through  from  here  to  Pennsylvania  in  a 
Ford  not  long  ago." 

She  cackled  stridently.  I  was  fascinated  by  her  vigor 
in  age. 

"Nate  here,"  she  went  on,  "says  he  thinks  we  ought  to 
get  a  machine  one  of  these  days,  but  lawsie !  I  don't  know 
whether  I  could  learn  to  run  it,  and  I'm  certain  he 
couldn't."  Her  keen  birdlike  eyes  devoured  me,  and  she 
smiled.  "And  so  you're  a  writer?  Well,  what  do  you 
write?  Novels?" 

"Well,  some  people  condescend  to  call  them  that,"  I 
answered.  "I'd  hesitate  to  tell  you  what  some  others  call 
them." 

"It's  funny  I  never  heard  of  any  of  'em.  What's  the 
names  of  some  of  'em?" 

I  enlightened  her. 

"Well,  now,  that's  strange.  I  never  heard  of  a  one  of 
them — I  must  get  two  or  three  and  see  how  you  write." 

"That's  good  of  you,"  I  chuckled,  in  the  best  of  spirits. 

"Bertie  Wilkerson — you  remember  Bertie,  don't  you? 
— he  was  the  son  of  the  justice  of  the  peace  here — well, 
he's  on  one  of  the  Cleveland  papers  now,  writing  in  some 


OLD  HAUNTS  AND  OLD  DREAMS     321 

way.  There's  a  woman  over  here  in  Wabash  (I  knew 
the  name  of  the  novelist  coming  now)  has  made  a  big 
reputation  for  herself  with  her  books.  They  have  whole 
stacks  of  'em  here  in  the  stores,  I  see.  I  read  one  of  'em. 
They  tell  me  she's  worth  four  or  five  hundred  thousand 
dollars  by  now.  You've  heard  of  her,  haven't  you?" 
She  gave  me  her  name. 

"Yes,"  I  replied  very  humbly,  "I  have." 

"Well,  I  don't  suppose  you  make  that  much,  anyhow, 
do  you?"  she  queried. 

"No,"  I  replied.    "I'm  very  sorry,  I  don't." 

I  could  see  by  the  stress  she  laid  on  the  four  or  five 
hundred  thousand  dollars  and  the  stacks  of  books  in  the 
local  store  that  my  type  of  authorship  would  never  ap 
peal  to  her. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  we  found  other  things  equally  inter 
esting  to  both  to  talk  about.  The  town  had  changed. 
She  began  to  tell  when  and  in  what  manner  and  why  the 
old  pond  had  been  filled  in;  why  the  leading  banker, 
whose  wide  verandahed  house  had  been  a  subject  of 
wonder  and  envy  to  me,  had  moved  it  off  the  old  prop 
erty  and  built  an  even  more  splendiferous  home.  Chil 
dren  and  grand-children  had  come  to  live  with  him.  I 
could  see  the  old  house  in  its  new  position  on  the  other 
side  of  the  pond — a  poor  affair  compared  to  what  I 
thought  it  was.  Why  do  our  memories  lie  so?  Could 
anyone  or  anything  be  a  greater  liar  than  the  average 
memory? 

When  I  came  out  of  there  after  a  time  and  returned 
to  the  car  Franklin  was  still  patiently  sketching,  making 
good  use  of  his  time,  whereas  Speed  was  sitting  with  his 
feet  on  a  part  of  his  engine  equipment  cleaning  a  chain. 
They  were  partly  surrounded  now:  ( i )  by  old  Mr.  Grid- 
ley,  he  of  my  former  room,  who  was  retailing  the  story 
of  his  son's  death;  (2)  by  a  short,  dusty,  rotund,  rather 
oily-haired  man  who  announced  that  he  was  the  owner  of 
the  property  which  had  formerly  sheltered  me,  and  who 
by  virtue  of  having  cut  down  all  the  trees  and  built  the 
two  abominable  houses  in  front  seemed  to  think  that 


322  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

he  was  entitled  to  my  friendship  and  admiration — a  non 
sequltur  which  irritated  me  greatly;  (3)  by  a  small  boy 
from  somewhere  in  the  vicinity  who  stood  with  his  legs 
very  far  apart,  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  and  merely 
stared  and  listened  while  Mr.  Gridley  related  the  mov 
ing  details  of  his  son's  death  and  the  futility  of  the  cam 
paign  at  the  Dardanelles.  The  owner  of  the  houses  in 
front  kept  trying  to  interject  bits  of  his  personal  history 
as  carpenter,  builder,  land  speculator,  and  the  like.  It 
was  most  entertaining. 

"I  was  just  saying  to  your  friend  here,"  said  the  latter, 
who  had  never  met  me  until  this  moment,  "that  if  you're 
in  town  long  enough  you  must  come  and  take  dinner  with 
me.  We're  just  plain  people,  but  we  can  give  you  plenty 
to  eat.  Anyone  who  lived  here  as  long  ago  as  you 
did " 

I  felt  no  least  desire  to  dine  with  him,  largely  because 
he  had  cut  down  all  the  fine  trees  and  built  such  trashy 
houses. 

He  chattered  on  in  an  impossible  fashion.  I  could  see 
he  was  greatly  impressed  by  our  possession  of  this  car. 
And  to  have  come  all  the  way  from  New  York!  I 
wanted  to  annihilate  him  for  having  destroyed  the  trees 
— the  wretch ! 

But  I  felt  that  we  ought  to  be  getting  on.  Here  it  was 
after  five  and  I  still  had  various  things  to  see — the  old 
Central  High  School,  where  so  long  ago  I  finished  my 
eighth  grade  common  and  my  first  year  German  and  al 
gebra;  the  lakes,  Centre  and  Pike,  where  with  many 
others  I  had  been  accustomed  to  row,  swim,  skate,  fish, 
and  camp ;  the  old  swimming  hole  out  in  the  Tippecanoe 
(three  miles  out,  I  thought,  at  least)  ;  our  old  Catholic 
Church,  where  I  regularly  went  to  confession  and  com 
munion;  the  woods  where  I  had  once  found  a  dead  ped 
dler,  lying  face  down,  self-finished,  at  the  foot  of  a  great 
oak;  and  so  on  and  so  forth — endless  places,  indeed.  Be 
sides,  there  were  various  people  I  wanted  to  see,  people 
who,  like  the  wiry  Mrs.  McConnell,  could  tell  me  much 
— perhaps. 


OLD  HAUNTS  AND  OLD  DREAMS      323 

Alas  for  intentions  and  opportunities !  I  suppose  I 
might  have  spent  days  browsing  and  communing,  but  now 
that  I  was  here  and  actually  seeing  things,  I  did  not  feel 
inclined  to  do  it.  What  was  there  really  to  see,  I  asked 
myself,  aside  from  the  mere  exterior  or  surface  of  things? 
In  one  more  hour  I  could  examine  exteriorly  or  in  per 
spective  all  of  these  things — the  lakes,  the  school,  the 
swimming  hole,  the  church — they  were  all  near  at  hand — 
unless  I  wanted  to  linger  here  for  weeks.  Did  I  really 
want  to  stay  longer  than  this  dusk? 

Franklin  was  eager  to  get  on.  When  first  he  invited 
me  he  had  planned  no  such  extended  tour  as  this,  and 
these  were  not  his  sacred  scenes.  It  was  all  very  well — 
but 

Nevertheless,  we  did  cruise  (as  Speed  was  wont  to 
express  it),  first  to  Centre  Lake,  where  many  a  moon 
light  when  the  ice  was  as  thick  as  a  beam  and  as  smooth 
as  glass  Ed,  Tillie  and  I,  along  with  a  half  hundred  town 
boys  and  girls,  had  skated  to  our  hearts'  content  or  fished 
through  the  ice.  My,  how  wonderful  it  wasl  To  see 
them  cutting  ice  on  the  lake  with  horses  and  fishing 
through  holes  only  large  enough  to  permit  the  extraction 
of  a  small  sized  fish  when  one  bit.  To  my  astonishment 
the  waters  of  the  lake  had  receded  or  diminished  fully  a 
fifth  of  its  original  circumference,  and  all  the  houses  and 
boathouses  which  formerly  stood  close  to  its  edge  were 
now  fully  two  hundred  feet  inland.  In  addition,  all  the 
smartness  and  superiority  which  once  invested  this  sec 
tion  were  now  gone — the  region  of  the  summer  confer 
ences  at  Winona  having  superseded  this.  Houses  I  was 
sure  I  would  be  able  to  recall,  should  they  chance  to  be 
here — those  of  Maud  Rutter,  Augusta  Nueweiler  (she  of 
the  fir  tree  kiss),  Ada  Sanguiat,  were  not  discernible  at 
all.  I  knew  they  were  here  unchanged,  but  I  could  not 
find  them. 

We  went  out  past  an  old  bridge  to  the  northeast  of 
the  town  (scarcely  a  half  mile  out)  and  found  to  my  as 
tonishment  that  the  stream  it  once  spanned — the  Tippe- 
canoe,  if  you  please — and  that  once  drained  Centre  and 


324  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

Pike  Lakes,  was  now  no  more.  There  was  only  a  new 
stone  culvert  here,  not  the  old  iron  and  plank  wagon 
bridge  of  my  day — and  no  water  underneath  it  at  all, 
only  a  seepy  muck,  overgrown  with  marsh  grass ! !  The 
whole  river,  a  clear  sandy-bottomed  stream,  was  now 
gone — due  to  the  recession  of  the  lake,  I  suppose.  The 
swimming  hole  that  I  fancied  must  be  all  of  two  or  three 
miles  out  was  not  more  than  one,  and  it  had  disappeared, 
of  course,  with  the  rest.  There  was  not  even  a  sign  of 
the  footpath  that  led  across  the  fields  to  it.  All  was 
changed.  The  wild  rice  fields  that  once  stood  about  here 
for  what  seemed  miles  to  me,  and  overrun  in  the  sum 
mertime  (July,  August,  and  September,  in  particular) 
with  thousands  upon  thousands  of  blackbirds  and  crows, 
were  now  well  plowed  cornland!  I  could  not  see  more 
than  the  vaguest  outlines  of  the  region  I  had  known,  and 
I  could  not  recapture,  save  in  the  vaguest  way,  any  of 
the  boyish  moods  that  held  me  at  the  time.  In  my  heart 
was  a  clear  stream  and  a  sandy  bottom  and  a  troop  of 
half-forgotten  boys,  and  birds,  and  blue  skies,  and  men 
fishing  by  this  bridge  where  was  now  this  culvert — Ed  and 
I  among  them  occasionally — and  here  was  nothing  at  all 
— a  changed  world. 

"Oh,  it's  all  gone!"  I  cried  to  Franklin.  "Why,  an 
iron  wagon  bridge  used  to  hang  here.  This  was  a  beau 
tiful  fishing  pool.  A  path  went  across  here.  Let's  go 
back." 

We  went  up  to  the  old  Central  High  School,  looking 
exactly  as  it  did  in  my  day,  only  now  a  ward  instead  of 
a  high  school — a  new  high  having  been  built  since  I  left 
—and  here  I  tried  to  recapture  some  of  the  emotions  I 
have  always  had  in  my  dreams  of  it  and  have  still.  I  saw 
troops  of  boys  and  girls  coming  out  of  it  at  noon  and  at 
four  in  the  afternoon — I  and  my  sister  Tillie  among 
them.  I  saw  Dora  Yaisley  and  Myrtle  Taylor  (of  the 
pale  flower  face  and  violet  eyes),  and  Jess  Beasley  and 
Sadie  and  Dolly  Varnum — what  a  company !  And  there 
were  George  and  John  Sharp — always  more  or  less  com 
panionable  with  me,  and  "Jud"  Morris  and  Frank  Yais- 


OLD  HAUNTS  AND  OLD  DREAMS      325 

ley  and  Al  Besseler  and  a  score  of  others — interesting 
souls  all  and  now  scattered  to  the  four  corners  of  the 
earth. 

But  sitting  in  the  car — suddenly  I  saw  myself  in  my 
seat  upstairs  looking  out  the  north  window  which  was 
nearest  me,  and  dreaming  of  the  future.  From  where  I 
sat  in  those  days  I  could  see  up  a  long,  clean  alley,  with 
people  crossing  at  its  different  street  intersections  for 
blocks  away.  I  could  see  far  off  to  where  the  station  was 
and  the  flour  mill  and  where  the  trains  came  in.  I  could 
hear  their  whistles — distant  and  beckoning — feeling  the 
tug  and  pull  of  my  future  life  to  come  out  and  away. 
I  could  see  clouds  and  trees  and  little  houses  and  birds 
over  the  court  house  tower,  and  then  I  wanted  to  get 
out  and  fly  too — to  walk  up  and  down  the  great  earth  and 
be  happy. 

I  tell  you,  in  those  days,  wonderful,  amazing  moods 
were  generated  in  the  blood  of  me.  I  felt  and  saw  things 
which  have  never  come  true — glories,  moods,  gayeties, 
perfections.  There  was  a  lilt  in  my  heart  and  my  soul. 
I  wanted,  oh !  I  wanted  all  that  Nature  can  breed  in  her 
wealth  of  stars  and  universes — -and  I  found — what  have 
I  found ? 

The  frame  of  any  man  is  an  infinitesimal  shell.  The 
soul  of  him  so  small,  a  pale  lamp  which  he  carries  in  his 
hands !  The  passions  of  which  we  boast  or  from  whose 
imagined  horrors  we  flee  are  such  little  things — rush 
lights — scarcely  able  to  glimmer  in  so  great  a  dark.  Peo 
ple  rage  at  men  and  women  for  their  passions !  At  best, 
granting  a  Hero,  a  Caligula,  an  Alexander,  a  Napoleon — 
what  small,  greedy  insects  indeed  they  were.  They  blazed 
and  bestrode  the  earth.  They  fought,  conquered,  reveled. 
Against  the  vast  illimitable  substance  and  force  of  things, 
what  pale  flames  they  really  were,  after  all;  so  trivial,  so 
unimportant.  As  well  seek  out  the  captains  and  generals 
and  emperors  of  ants.  In  the  vast  something  or  nothing 
of  life  they  are  as  much  worth  recording  personally.  I 
have  eaten  and  drunken,  and  thirsted  after  all,  but  should 


3i6  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

the  curtain  descend  now,  how  little  have  I  had!     How 
little  could  any  man  ever  have ! 

Oh,  great,  scheming,  dreaming  Prince  of  Life — what 
is  that  you  are  after?  What  blood  moods  in  your  soul 
is  it  that  we,  your  atoms,  hurry  to  fulfill  ?  Do  you  love  ? 
Do  you  hate?  By  billions  sweating,  blazing,  do  we  ful 
fill  some  quaint  desire  of  yours?  Drop  you  the  curtain 
then  on  me.  I  do  not  care — I  am  very  tired.  Drop  it 
and  let  me  dream  no  more  the  endless  wonders  and  de 
lights  that  never,  never,  can  be. 


CHAPTER   XLI 

BILL   ARNOLD   AND    HIS   BROOD 

WEST  of  Warsaw  about  twelve  miles  lies  the  town  of 
Silver  Lake,  on  a  small  picturesque  lake  of  the  same  name 
— a  place  to  which,  during  our  residence  at  Warsaw,  Ed 
and  I  more  than  once  repaired  to  visit  a  ne'er-do-well 
uncle  and  his  wife,  the  latter  my  mother's  half  sister. 
This  family  was  so  peculiar  and  so  indifferent  to  all 
worldly  success  and  precedence,  so  utterly  trifling  and 
useless,  that  I  am  tempted  to  tell  about  them  even  though 
they  do  not  properly  belong  in  this  narrative.  William 
or  "BilP  Arnold,  as  he  was  called  locally,  was  really  the 
cause  of  it  all.  He  was  the  father,  but  little  more  than  a 
country  wastrel.  He  had  a  fiddle  on  which  he  could  play 
a  little.  He  had  a  slightly  cocked  eye  and  a  nasal  voice, 
high  and  thin.  He  had  no  more  education  than  a  squirrel 
and  no  more  care  for  things  of  place  and  position  than 
any  rabbit  or  woodchuck.  His  wife,  a  kindly,  inarticu 
late  and  meditative  woman,  who  looked  like  my  mother, 
was  all  out  of  sorts  and  down  at  heels  in  soul  and  body 
because  of  his  indifference  to  all  things  material  or  spir 
itual.  They  lived  in  an  old  tumble-down,  paintless  house, 
the  roof  of  which  leaked  and  the  eaves  sagged,  and  here, 
and  in  other  houses  like  it,  no  doubt,  they  had  had  four 
children,  one  of  whom,  the  eldest,  became  a  thief  (but  a 
very  clever  one,  I  have  heard)  ;  the  second  a  railroad 
brakeman;  the  third  the  wife  of  an  idle  country  loafer  as 
worthless  as  her  father;  the  fourth,  a  hunchbacked  boy, 
was  to  me,  at  least,  a  veritable  sprite  of  iniquity,  thinking 
up  small  deviltries  the  whole  day  long.  He  was  fond  of 
fighting  with  his  sister  and  parents,  shouting  vile  names 
when  angry,  and  so  conducting  himself  generally  that  he 
was  an  object  almost  of  loathing  to  such  of  our  family 
as  knew  him. 

327 


328  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

Their  home  was  a  delightful  place  for  me  to  come  to, 
so  fresh,  so  new,  so  natural — not  at  all  like  our  ordered 
home.  I  felt  as  though  I  were  housed  with  a  kind  of 
genial  wild  animal — a  fox  or  prairie  dog  or  squirrel  or 
coyote.  Old  Arnold  had  no  more  morals  than  a  fox  or 
squirrel.  He  never  bathed.  He  would  get  up  in  the 
morning  and  feed  his  pigs  and  two  horses,  the  only  ani 
mals  he  owned — and  then,  if  the  weather  was  suitable 
and  he  had  no  absolutely  compelling  work  to  do,  he 
would  hunt  rabbits  (in  winter)  or  squirrel  or  "pat- 
ridges,"  or  go  fishing,  or  go  down  to  the  saloon  to  fiddle 
and  sing  or  to  a  dance.  He  was  always  driving  off  to 
some  dance  where  he  earned  a  few  cents  as  a  fiddler  (it 
was  his  great  excuse),  and  then  coming  home  at  two  or 
three  in  the  morning,  slightly  tipsy  and  genial,  to  relate 
his  experiences  to  anyone  who  would  listen.  He  was  not 
afraid  of  his  wife  or  children  exactly,  and  yet  he  was  not 
the  master  of  them  either,  and  it  used  to  scandalize  me 
to  have  him  called  a  loafer  and  an  "old  fool,"  not  by  her 
so  much  as  by  them.  My  own  father  was  so  strict,  so 
industrious,  so  moral,  that  I  could  scarcely  believe  my 
ears. 

I  used  to  love  to  walk  west  from  Warsaw  on  a  fine 
summer's  day,  when  my  mother  would  permit  me,  and 
visit  them — walk  the  whole  twelve  miles.  Once  she  em 
powered  me  to  negotiate  for  a  cow  which  this  family 
owned  and  for  which  we  paid  twentyfive  dollars.  Ed 
and  I  drove  the  cow  up  from  Silver  Lake.  Another  time 
we  bought  three  (or  four)  pigs,  and  drove  them  (Ed 
and  I)  the  whole  twelve  miles  on  a  hot  July  day.  Great 
heavens !  What  a  time  we  had  to  get  them  to  come  along 
straight!  They  ran  into  bogs  and  woods — wherever 
there  was  a  fence  down — and  we  had  to  chase  them  until 
they  fell  exhausted — too  far  gone  to  run  us  farther. 
Once  they  invaded  a  tangled,  low  growing  swamp,  to 
wallow  in  the  muck,  and  we  had  to  get  down  on  our 
hands  and  knees — our  bellies  actually — to  see  where  they 
had  gone.  We  were  not  wearing  shoes  and  stockings; 
but  we  took  off  our  trousers,  hung  them  over  our  arms, 


BILL  ARNOLD  AND  HIS  BROOD         329 

and  went  in  after  them.  If  we  didn't  beat  those  pigs 
when  we  got  near  enough!  Say!  We  chased  them  for 
nearly  a  mile  to  exhaust  and  punish  them,  and  then  we 
switched  them  along  the  rest  of  the  way  to  "get  even." 

I  remember  one  hot  July  afternoon,  when  I  was  visit 
ing  here,  how  my  Aunt  Susan  read  my  fortune  in  the 
grounds  of  a  coffee  cup.  It  was  after  a  one  o'clock  farm 
hand  dinner.  Uncle  Bill  and  one  or  two  of  the  other 
children  had  come  and  gone.  I  was  alone  with  her,  and 
we  sat  in  the  shade  of  an  east  porch,  comfortable  in  the 
afternoon.  I  can  see  the  wall  of  trees  over  the  way,  even 
yet,  the  bees  buzzing  about  an  adjacent  trumpet  vine,  the 
grass  hot  and  dry  but  oh !  so  summery. 

"Now,  let's  see  what  it  says  about  you  in  your  cup," 
and  she  took  it  and  turned  it  round  and  round,  upside 
down  three  times.  Then  she  looked  into  it  meditatively 
and  after  a  while  began:  "Oh,  I  see  cities,  cities,  cities, 
and  great  crowds,  and  bridges,  and  chimneys.  You  are 
going  to  travel  a  long  way — all  over  the  world,  perhaps. 
And  there  are  girls  in  your  cup!  I  see  their  faces."  (I 
thrilled  at  that.)  "You  won't  stay  here  long.  You'll  be 
going  soon,  out  into  the  world.  Do  you  want  to  travel?" 
she  asked. 

"Yes,  indeed  I  do,"  I  replied. 

"Well,  you  will.     It's  all  here." 

Her  face  was  so  grave !  She  looked  like  one  of  the 
three  fates,  so  old,  so  wrinkled,  so  distant. 

I  thought  nothing  of  her  at  the  time,  but  only  of  my 
self.  How  beautiful  would  be  that  outside  world!  And 
I  would  be  going  to  it  soon!  Walking  up  and  down  in 
it!  Oh,  wonderful,  wonderful,  wonderful! 

When  we  were  traveling  toward  Warsaw  it  had  been 
my  idea  that  we  would  visit  Silver  Lake  and  if  I  could 
find  nothing  more  I  could  at  least  look  at  that  body  of 
water  and  the  fields  that  surrounded  it  and  the  streets 
with  which  I  had  been  fairly  familiar.  The  lake  had 
seemed  such  a  glorious  thing  to  me  in  those  days.  It 
was  so  sylvan  and  silent.  A  high  growth  of  trees  sur- 


^j 


330  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

rounded  it  like  a  wall.  Its  waters  reflected  in  turn  blue, 
grey,  green,  black.  It  was  so  still  within  its  wall  of  trees 
that  our  voices  echoed  hollowly.  A  fish  leaping  out  of 
the  water  could  be  heard,  and  the  echo  of  the  splash. 
Often  I  sat  here  gazing  at  the  blue  sky  and  the  trees,  and 
waiting  for  a  small  red  and  green  cork  on  my  line  to 
bob. 

But  my  aunt  and  my  uncle  were  long  since  dead,  I 
knew.  The  children  had  gone  —  where?  There  was 
probably  no  least  trace  of  them  anywhere  here,  and  I 
was  in  no  mood  to  hunt  them  down.  Still,  in  coming 
West,  I  had  the  desire  to  come  here,  to  look,  to  stand  in 
some  one  of  these  old  places  and  recover  if  I  might  a 
boyhood  mood. 

Now,  as  we  were  leaving  Warsaw,  however,  I  was 
too  physically  tired  and  too  spiritually  distrait  to  be  very 
much  interested.  My  old  home  town  had  done  for  me 
completely  —  the  shadows  of  older  days.  For  one  thing, 
I  had  a  splitting  headache,  which  I  was  carefully  con 
cealing,  and  a  fine  young  heartache  into  the  bargain.  I 
was  dreadfully  depressed  and  gloomy. 

But  it  was  a  fine  warm  night,  with  a  splendid  half 
moon  in  the  sky  and  delicious  wood  and  field  fragrances 
about.  Such  odors  !  Is  there  anything  more  moving 
than  the  odors,  the  suspirings  of  the  good  earth,  in  sum 
mer? 

As  we  neared  Silver  Lake  (as  I  thought)  we  ran 
down  into  a  valley  where  a  small  rivulet  made  its  way 
tand  under  the  darkling  trees  we  encountered  a  homing 
woman,  coming  from  a  milking  shed  which  was  close  to 
the  stream.  Five  children  were  with  her,  the  oldest  boy 
packing  the  youngest,  an  infant  of  two  or  three  years.  It 
reminded  me  of  all  the  country  families  I  had  known  in 
my  time  —  a  typical  mid-  Western  and  American  proces- 
sion.  The  mother,  a  not  unprepossessing  woman  of 
forty,  was  clothed  in  a  shapeless  grey  calico  print  with  a 
sunbonnet  to  match,  and  without  shoes.  The  children 
were  all  barefooted  and  ragged  but  as  brown  and  healthy 
and  fresh  looking  as  young  animals  should  be.  It  so 


- 


CENTRAL    INDIANA 
A  Farm  and  Silo 


BILL  ARNOLD  AND  HIS  BROOD        331 

chanced  that  Speed  had  to  do  something  here — look 
after  the  light  or  supply  the  motor  with  a  cooling  draught 
— and  so  we  paused,  and  the  children  gathered  around 
us,  intensely  curious. 

"Gee,  ain't  it  a  big  one  1"  exclaimed  the  eldest.  "Look 
at  the  silver." 

He  was  descanting  on  the  lamp. 

"I'll  bet  it  ain't  no  bigger  than  that  jackdigger  that 
went  through  here  yesterday,"  observed  the  second  eld 
est  boastfully. 

"What's  a  jackdigger?"  I  inquired  helplessly. 

"Oh,  it's  a  car,"  replied  the  eldest,  one  of  the  hand 
somest  boys  one  would  want  to  look  at — beautiful,  really 
— all  the  more  so  because  of  his  torn  shirt  and  trousers 
and  his  bare  feet  and  head. 

"Yes,  but  what  kind  of  car?    What  make?" 

"Oh,  I  can't  think.  We  see  'em  around  here  now  and 
then — great  big  fellers." 

And  now  the  next  to  the  youngest,  a  boy  of  five  or  six, 
had  come  alongside  where  I  was  sitting  and  was  looking 
up  at  me — a  fat  little  cherub  in  panties  so  small  you  could 
have  made  them  out  of  a  good  sized  handkerchief. 

"There  you  are,"  I  said  to  him  helpfully.  "Won't 
you  come  up  and  sit  with  me  here — such  a  nice  big  boy 
as  you  are?" 

He  shook  his  head  and  backed  away  a  little. 

"Huhuh,"  he  said,  after  a  pause. 

"Why  not?"  I  queried,  a  little  yearningly,  for  I  wanted 
him  to  come  and  sit  with  me. 

"I  can't,"  he  replied,  eyeing  me  solemnly.  "I'm 
'fraid." 

"Oh,  no,"  I  said,  "not  afraid  of  me,  surely?  Don't 
you  know  that  no  one  would  think  of  hurting  a  little  boy 
like  you — not  a  person  in  all  the  world?  Won't  you 
come  now  and  sit  with  me?  It's  so  nice  up  here." 

I  held  out  my  arms. 

"I'm  'fraid,"  he  repeated. 

"Oh,  no,"  I  insisted.  "You  mustn't  say  that,  not  of 
me?  You  couldn't  be.  Can't  you  see  how  much  I  like 


332  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

you?  See  here" — and  I  reached  into  my  pocket — "I 
have  pennies  and  picturecards  and  I  don't  know  what  all. 
Won't  you  come  now?  Please  do.'7 

"Go  on,  Charlie,"  called  a  brother.  uWhatcha  'fraid 
of?  Go  on."  This  brother  came  around  then  and  tried 
to  persuade  him. 

All  the  while  he  was  staring  at  me  doubtfully,  his  eyes 
getting  very  round,  but  finally  he  ventured  a  step  for 
ward,  and  I  picked  him  up  and  snuggled  him  in  my 
arms. 

"There,  now,"  I  said.  "Now,  you  see?  You're  not 
afraid  of  me,  are  you?  Up  here  in  the  nice,  big  car? 
And  now  here's  your  other  brother  come  to  sit  beside 
us" — (this  because  the  next  oldest  had  clambered  in)  — 
"and  here's  a  nickel  and  here's  a  picturecard  and " 

"Who's  'fraid!"  he  crowed,  sitting  up  in  my  lap.  "I 
ain't  'fraid,  am  I?" 

"Indeed  not,"  I  returned.  "Big  boys  like  you  are  not 
afraid  of  anything.  And  now  here's  a  fine  big  nickel" — 
I  went  on  because  he  had  ignored  the  previous  offer. 
"And  here's  a  card.  Isn't  that  nice?" 

"Huhuh,"  he  replied. 

"You  mean  you  don't  like  it — don't  want  it?" 

"Huhuh,"  he  repeated. 

"And  why  not?" 

"My  mother  won't  let  me." 

"Your  mother  won't  let  you  take  any  money?" 

"Huhuh." 

"Is  that  right?"  I  asked  of  the  eldest  boy,  rather 
taken  aback  by  the  morals  of  this  group — they  were  so 
orderly  and  sweet. 

"That's  right,"  he  replied,  "she  won't  let  us." 

"Well,  now,  I  wouldn't  have  you  do  anything  to  dis 
please  mother — not  for  worlds — but  I'm  sorry  just  the 
same,"  observing  her  in  the  distance.  She  was  bending 
over  several  full  milk  pails.  Even  as  I  looked  she  picked 
them  up  and  came  trudging  toward  us. 

"Well,  anyhow,  you  can  take  a  card,  can't  you?"  I 


BILL  ARNOLD  AND  HIS  BROOD        333 

continued,  and  I  gave  each  several  pictures  of  Warsaw 
scenes.  "They  won't  hurt,  will  they?" 

"Huhuh,"  answered  the  little  one,  taking  them. 

As  the  mother  neared  us  I  suffered  a  keen  recrudes 
cence  of  the  mood  that  used  to  grip  me  when  my  mother 
would  go  out  of  an  evening  like  this  to  milk  or  walk 
about  the  garden  or  look  after  the  roses  at  Sullivan,  and 
Ed  and  Tillie  and  I  would  follow  her.  (She  was  so  dear 
and  gentle.  Under  the  trees  or  about  our  lawn  we  would 
follow  her,  and  here  under  these  odorous  trees,  in  the 
light  of  this  clear  moon,  the  smell  of  cattle  and  wild 
flowers  about,  my  mother  came  back  and  took  me  by  the, 
hand.  I  held  onto  her  skirt  and  rubbed  against  her  legs 
self  protectingly.  She  was  all  in  all  to  us  in  those  years 
— the  whole  world — my  one  refuge  and  strength. 

How  benign  is  the  power  that  makes  mothers — and 
mothers'  love ! 

Soon  we  were  off  again,  speeding  under  the  shade  of 
overhanging  trees  or  out  in  the  open  between  level  fields, 
and  after  racing  about  fourteen  miles  or  thereabouts,  we 
discovered  that  we  were  not  near  Silver  Lake  any  more 
at  all — had  passed  it  by  seven  miles  or  so.  We  were 
really  within  six  miles  of  North  Manchester,  Indiana,  a 
place  where  a  half  uncle  of  mine  had  once  lived,  a  stingy, 
greedy,  well  meaning  Baptist,  and  his  wife.  He  had  a 
very  large  farm  here,  one  of  the  best,  and  was  noted  for 
the  amount  of  hay  and  corn  he  raised  and  the  fine  cattle 
he  kept.  My  brother  Albert,  shortly  after  the  family's 
fortune  had  come  to  its  worst  smash — far  back  in  1878 
— had  been  sent  up  here  by  mother  to  work  and  board. 
She  was  very  distraught  at  the  time — at  her  wits'  ends — 
and  her  brood  was  large.  So  here  he  had  come,  had 
been  reasonably  well  received  by  this  stern  pair  and  had 
finally  become  so  much  of  a  favorite  that  they  wanted  to 
adopt  him.  Incidentally  he  became  very  vigorous  physi 
cally,  a  perfect  little  giant,  with  swelling  calves  and  bi 
ceps  and  a  desire  to  exhibit  his  strength  by  lifting  every 
body  and  everything — a  trait  which  my  sister  Tillie  soon 
shamed  out  of  him.  When  we  had  finally  settled  in  Sul- 


334  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

livan,  in  1880,  for  a  year  or  two  he  rejoined  us  and 
would  not  return  to  his  foster  parents.  They  begged  him 
but  the  family  atmosphere  at  Sullivan,  restricted  and 
poverty  stricken  as  it  was,  proved  too  much  for  him.  He 
preferred  after  a  time  to  follow  us  to  Evansville  and 
eventually  to  Warsaw.  Like  all  the  rest  of  us,  he  was 
inoculated  with  the  charm  of  my  mother.  No  one  of  us 
could  resist  her.  She  was  too  wonderful. 

And  now  as  we  neared  this  city  I  was  thinking  of  all 
this  and  speculating  where  Al  might  be  now — I  had  not 
heard  from  him  in  years — and  how  my  half-uncle  had 
really  lived  (I  had  never  seen  him)  and  what  my  mother 
would  think  if  she  could  follow  this  ramble  with  her 
eyes.  But  also  my  head  was  feeling  as  though  it  might 
break  open  and  my  eyes  ached  and  burned  dreadfully. 
I  wanted  to  go  back  to  Warsaw  and  stay  there  for  a 
while — not  the  new  Warsaw  as  I  had  just  seen  it,  but 
the  old  Warsaw.  I  wanted  to  see  my  mother  and  Ed 
and  Tillie  as  we  were  then,  not  now,  and  I  couldn't.  We 
rolled  into  this  other  town,  which  I  had  never  seen  be 
fore,  and  having  found  the  one  hotel,  carried  in  our 
bags  and  engaged  our  rooms.  Outside,  katy-dids  and 
other  insects  were  sawing  lustily.  There  was  a  fine,  clean 
bathroom  with  hot  and  cold  water  at  hand,  but  I  was 
too  flat  for  that.  I  wished  so  much  that  I  was  younger 
and  not  so  sick  just  now.  I  could  think  of  nothing  but  to 
undress  and  sleep.  I  wanted  to  forget  as  quickly  as  pos 
sible,  and  while  Franklin  and  Speed  sallied  forth  to 
find  something  to  eat  I  slipped  between  the  sheets  and 
tried  to  rest.  In  about  an  hour  or  less  I  slept — a  deep, 
dreamless  sleep; — and  the  next  morning  on  opening 
my  eyes  I  heard  a  wood  dove  outside  my  window  and 
some  sparrows  and  two  neighbor  women  gossiping  in 
good  old  Indiana  style  over  a  back  fence,  and  then  I  felt 
more  at  ease,  a  little  wistful  but  happy. 


CHAPTER    XLII 


IN  THE  CHAUTAUQUA  BELT 

THE  centre  of  Indiana  is  a  region  of  calm  and  sim 
plicity,  untroubled  to  a  large  extent,  as  I  have  often  felt, 
by  the  stormy  emotions  and  distresses  which  so  often  af 
fect  other  parts  of  America  and  the  world.  It  is  a  region 
of  smooth  and  fertile  soil,  small,  but  comfortable  homes, 
large  grey  or  red  barns,  the  American  type  of  windmill, 
the  American  silo,  the  American  motor  car — a  happy 
land  of  churches,  Sunday  schools,  public  schools  and  a 
general  faith  in  God  and  humanity  as  laid  down  by  the 
Presbyterian  or  the  Baptist  or  the  Methodist  Church  and 
by  the  ten  commandments,  which  is  at  once  reassuring 
and  yet  disturbing. 

This  day  as  we  traveled  through  Wabash,  Peru  (the 
winter  home  of  Hagenbeck's  and  Wallace's  combined 
shows,  b'gosh!),  Kokomo,  where  the  world  very  nearly 
came  to  an  end  for  Speed  and  where  James  Whitcomb 
Riley  once  worked  in  a  printer's  shop  (I  understood  he 
had  no  love  for  my  work) — and  so  on  through  West- 
field,  an  old  Quaker  settlement,  and  to  Carmel  (where 
Franklin  lives),  and  really  to  Indianapolis,  for  Carmel  is 
little  more  than  a  suburb  of  the  former, — I  was  more  and 
more  struck  with  the  facts  as  I  have  outlined  them  here. 
Certain  parts  of  the  world  are  always  in  turmoil.  Across 
the  rasping  grasses  of  Siberia  or  the  dry  sands  of  Egypt 
blow  winds  cold  or  hot,  which  make  of  the  people  rest 
less,  wandering  tribes.  To  peaceful  Holland  and  Bel 
gium,  the  lowlands  of  Germany,  the  plains  of  France 
and  Italy,  and  indeed  all  the  region  of  the  ancient  world, 
come  periodic  storms  of  ambition  or  hate,  which  make 
of  those  old  soils  burying  grounds  not  only  of  individual 
souls  but  of  races.  Here  in  America  we  have  already 

335 


336  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

had  proof  that  certain  sections  of  our  land  are  destined 
apparently  to  tempestuous  lives — the  Atlantic  and  Pa 
cific  seaboards,  Texas,  Colorado,  Kentucky,  various  parts 
of  the  South  and  the  West  and  the  Northwest,  where 
conditions  appear  to  engender  the  mood  dynamic.  From 
Chicago,  or  Colorado,  or  San  Francisco  one  may  expect 
a  giant  labor  war  or  social  upheaval  of  any  kind;  from 
Boston  or  Pennsylvania  or  New  Mexico  new  religious 
movements  may  come — and  have;  New  York,  Pennsyl 
vania,  Kansas,  Nebraska  and  Illinois  can  and  have  con 
tributed  vast  political  upheavals.  This  is  even  true  of 
Ohio,  its  next  door  neighbor. 

But  Indiana  lies  in  between  all  this — simple,  unpreten 
tious,  not  indifferent  but  quiescent, — a  happy  land  of 
farms  and  simple  industries  which  can  scarcely  be  said 
to  have  worked  any  harm  to  any  man. 

Its  largest  cities  have  grown  in  an  unobtrusive  and  al 
most  unheralded  way.  Its  largest  contributions  to  Amer 
ican  life  so  far  have  been  a  mildly  soporific  love  litera 
ture  of  sorts,  and  an  uncertain  political  vote.  Anyone 
could  look  at  these  towns — all  that  we  saw — and  be  sure 
that  the  natives  were  of  an  orderly,  saving,  genial  and 
religious  turn.  I  never  saw  neater  small  towns  anywhere, 
nor  more  imposing  churches  and  public  buildings,  nor 
fewer  saloons,  nor  cleaner  streets,  nor  better  roads.  A 
happy  land,  truly,  where  the  local  papers  give  large  and 
serious  attention  to  the  most  innocuous  of  social  doings 
and  the  farmers  take  good  care  that  all  their  land  is  un 
der  cultivation  and  well  looked  after. 

As  we  were  passing  through  Wabash,  for  instance — 
or  was  it  Peru? — we  came  upon  a  very  neat  and  pleasing 
church  and  churchyard,  the  front  lawn  of  which  an  old 
man  of  a  very  energetic  and  respectable  appearance — 
quite  your  "first  citizen"  type — was  mowing  with  a  lawn- 
mower. 

"Why  should  a  man  of  that  character  be  doing  that 
work  this  weekday,  do  you  suppose?"  I  inquired  of 
Franklin. 

"To  get  to  heaven,  of  course.    Can't  you  see?    Heaven 


IN  THE  CHAUTAUQUA  BELT  337 

is  a  literal,  material  thing  to  him.  It's  like  this  church 
building  and  its  grass.  The  closer  he  can  identify  him 
self  with  that  here  the  nearer  he  will  come  to  walking  into 
his  heaven  there.  I've  noticed  at  home  that  the  more 
prosperous  and  well  to  do  farmers  are  usually  the  lead 
ers  in  the  church.  They  apply  the  same  rules  of  getting 
on  in  religion  that  they  do  to  their  business.  It  is  all  a 
phase  of  the  instinct  of  a  man  to  provide  for  himself  and 
his  family.  I  tell  you,  these  people  expect  to  find  more  or 
less  a  duplication  of  what  they  have  here — with  all  the 
ills  and  pinches  taken  out  and  all  the  refinements  of  their 
fancy,  such  as  it  is,  added." 

I  felt  as  I  thought  of  that  old  man  that  this  was  true. 
He  reminded  me  of  my  father,  to  whom  to  do  the  most 
menial  work  about  a  Catholic  church  was  an  honor — such 
as  carrying  in  wood,  building  a  fire,  and  the  like.  You 
were  nearer  God  and  the  angels  for  doing  it.  Actually 
you  were  just  outside  the  pearly  gates.  And  if  one  could 
only  die  in  a  church — presto ! — the  gates  would  open  and 
there  you  would  be  inside. 

Truly,  this  day  of  riding  south  after  my  depressing 
afternoon  in  Warsaw  was  one  of  the  most  pleasant  of 
any  that  had  come  to  me.  Now  that  I  had  recovered 
from  my  mood  of  the  night  before — a  chemic  and  psy 
chic  disturbance  which  quite  did  for  me — I  was  in  a  very 
cheerful  frame  of  mind.  Long  before  either  Franklin 
or  Speed  had  risen  this  morning — they  had  spent  the 
evening  looking  around  the  town — I  was  up,  had  a  cold 
bath,  and  had  written  various  letters  and  visited  the  post 
office  and  studied  the  town  in  general. 

It  was  a  halcyon  morning,  partly  grey  with  a  faint  tint 
of  pink  in  the  East,  when  I  first  looked  out,  and  such  an 
array  of  house  martins  on  five  telegraph  or  telephone 
wires  over  the  way  as  I  had  not  seen  in  a  long  time.  Birds 
are  odd  creatures.  Their  gregariousness  without  speech 
always  fascinates  me.  These,  ranged  as  they  were  on 
the  different  wires,  looked  exactly  like  the  notes  of  a 
complicated  and  difficult  fugue — so  much  so  that  I  said  to 
a  passing  citizen  who  seemed  to  show  an  interest:  "Now, 


3j8  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

if  you  had  a  piano  or  an  organ  just  how  would  you  play 
that?" 

He  looked  up  at  the  wires  which  a  wave  of  my  hand 
indicated,  then  at  me.  He  was  a  man  of  over  forty,  who 
looked  as  though  he  might  be  a  traveling  salesman  or 
hotelkeeper. 

"They  do  look  like  notes,  don't  they?"  he  agreed. 

We  both  smiled,  and  then  he  added:  "Now  you  make 
me  wonder."  And  so  we  parted. 

Towns  of  this  size,  particularly  in  the  Middle  West — 
and  I  can  scarcely  say  why — have  an  intense  literary  and 
artistic  interest  for  me.  Whether  it  is  because  of  a  cer 
tain  comic  grandioseness  which  accompanies  some  of 
their  characters  or  an  ultra  seriousness  entirely  out  of 
proportion  to  the  seeming  import  of  events  here — or 
whether  one  senses  a  flow  of  secret  and  subconscious  de 
sires  hindered  or  trammeled  perhaps  by  cluttering  or  suf 
focating  beliefs  or  weaknesses,  or  a  lightness  and  sim 
plicity  of  character  due  to  the  soil  and  the  air — I  do  not 
know;  but  it  is  so.  In  this  region  I  am  always  stirred  or 
appealed  to  by  something  which  I  cannot  quite  explain. 
The  air  seems  lighter,  the  soil  more  grateful;  a  sense  of 
something  delicately  and  gracefully  romantic  is  abroad. 

Like  children  they  are,  these  people,  so  often  con 
cerned  with  little  things  which  do  not  matter  at  all — 
neighborhood  opinions,  neighborhood  desires,  neighbor 
hood  failures  and  contempts  which  a  little  more  mind 
could  solve  or  dissolve  so  readily.  Whenever  I  see  a  town 
of  this  size  in  Indiana  I  think  of  our  family  and  its  rela 
tion  to  one  or  many  like  it.  My  mother  and  sisters  and 
brothers  suffered  so  much  from  conventional  local  notions. 
They  made  such  a  pathetic  struggle  to  rid  themselves  of 
trammeling,  minor  local  beliefs. 

And  did  they  succeed? 

Not  quite.  Who  does?  Small  life  surrounds  one  like 
a  sea.  We  swim  in  it,  whether  we  will  or  no.  In  high 
halls  somewhere  are  tremendous  councils  of  gods  and 
supermen,  but  they  will  not  admit  us.  Zeus  and  Apollo 
will  not  suffer  the  feeble  judgments  of  humble  man.  And 


IN  THE  CHAUTAUQUA  BELT  339 

so  here  we  sit  and  slave  and  are  weary — insects  with  an 
appointed  task. 

North  Manchester,  like  all  the  small  Indiana  towns, 
appealed  to  me  on  the  very  grounds  I  have  outlined.  As 
I  went  up  the  street  this  early  morning  with  my  letters  I 
encountered  an  old  man,  evidently  a  citizen  of  importance 
— present  or  past — being  led  down  by  his  daughter  (I 
took  her  to  be).  The  latter  was  a  thin,  anaemic  person 
who  looked  endless  devotion — a  pathetic,  yearning  so 
licitude  for  this  man.  He  was  blind,  and  yet  quite  an 
impressive  figure,  large,  protuberant  as  to  stomach,  a 
broad,  well-modeled  face  somewhat  like  that  of  the  late 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  long,  snow  white  hair,  a  silk  hat, 
a  swinging  cutaway  coat  of  broadcloth,  a  pleated  soft- 
bosomed  shirt  ornamented  with  a  black  string  tie,  and  an 
ivory-headed  cane.  Under  his  arm  were  papers  and 
books.  His  sightless  eyes  were  fixed  on  nothing — straight 
ahead.  To  me  he  looked  like  a  lawyer  or  judge  or  con 
gressman  or  politician — a  local  big-wig  of  some  kind  yet 
stricken  in  this  most  pathetic  of  all  ways.  The  girl  who 
was  with  him  was  so  intent  on  his  welfare.  She  was  his 
eyes,  his  ears,  his  voice,  really.  It  was  wonderful — the 
resignation  and  self-effacement  of  her  expression.  It  was 
quite  moving. 

uWho  is  that  man?"  I  asked  of  a  grocer  clerk  putting 
out  a  barrel  of  potatoes. 

"That?  Oh,  that's  Judge  Shellenberger — or  he  was 
judge.  He's  a  lawyer  now  for  the  Monon  (a  railroad 
that  runs  through  here).  He  used  to  be  judge  of  the 


circuit  court." 


I  watched  them  down  the  street,  and  as  they  turned 
into  a  block  of  buildings  where  I  suppose  was  his  office, 
my  mind  was  busy  conjuring  up  the  background  which 
enmeshed  them.  Life  is  so  full  of  great  tales — every 
life  in  its  way  a  masterpiece  if  seen  in  its  entirety  and 
against  the  vast  background  of  life  itself.  Poor,  flutter 
ing,  summer  loving  man!  The  bones  of  him  make  the 
chalk  cliffs  of  time. 

To  the  curb  in  front  of  another  grocery  store  as  I 


340  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

was  coming  back  to  the  hotel  drew  up  a  small,  rickety 
buggy — so  dilapidated  and  antique,  scarcely  worthy  or 
safe  to  be  hauled  about  rough  country  roads  any  longer. 
In  it  were  "my  Grandfather  Squeers" — jackknife  legs  and 
all — and  his  wife,  a  most  spare  and  crotchety  female,  in  a 
very  plain  black  dress,  so  inexpensive,  a  grey  linseywool- 
sey  shawl  and  a  grey  poke  bonnet.  She  looked  so  set 
and  fixed  and  yet  humanly  interesting  in  her  way.  I  felt 
sorry  for  the  two  of  them  at  once,  as  I  always  do  for  age 
and  that  limited  array  of  thoughts  which  has  produced 
only  a  hard,  toilsome  life.  (We  laugh  at  ignorance  or 
dullness  or  condemn  them  so  loudly,  but  sometimes  they 
are  combined  with  such  earnestness  and  effort  that  one 
would  rather  cry.)  "My  Grandfather  Squeers"  was 
plainly  a  little  rheumatic  and  crotchety,  too.  He  re 
minded  me  of  that  Mr.  Gridley  who  was  occupying  my 
old  room  in  Warsaw,  only  he  was  much  older  and  not 
quite  so  intelligent.  He  was  having  a  hard  time  getting 
down  between  the  wheels  and  straightening  out  some 
parcels  under  the  seat,  the  while  Aunt  Sally  stared  on 
straight  ahead  and  the  horse  looked  back  at  them — a  not 
overfed  bay  mare  which  seemed  very  much  concerned  in 
their  affairs  and  what  they  were  going  to  do  next. 

"Now,  don't  you  forget  about  them  seed  onions," 
came  a  definite  caution  from  the  figure  on  the  seat. 

"No,  I  won't,"  he  replied. 

"And  ast  about  the  potatoes." 

"Yes." 

He  cricketed  his  way  into  the  store  and  presently  came 
out  with  a  small  bag  followed  by  a  boy  carrying  a  large 
bag — of  potatoes,  I  assumed. 

"I  guess  we  can  put  them  right  in  front — eh,  mother?" 
he  called. 

"Yes,  I  suppose  so,"  she  assented,  rather  sharply,  I 
thought,  but  not  angrily. 

The  while  the  boy  roughly  bestowed  the  bag  between 
them  he  went  back  for  something,  then  came  out  and  re 
adjusted  the  potatoes  properly. 


IN  THE  CHAUTAUQUA  BELT          341 

"He  didn't  have  any  red  tape,"  he  called  loudly,  as 
though  it  was  a  matter  of  considerable  importance. 
"Well,  all  right/'  she  said.  "Come  on  and  get  in." 
With  much  straining  of  his  thin,  stiff  legs  he  got  up 
and  as  he  did  so  I  noticed  that  his  coat  and  trousers  were 
home-made — cut,  oh!  most  amazingly — and  out  of  some 
old,  faded  wine  colored  cloth  to  begin  with,  probably 
worn  years  before  by  someone  else.  It  made  me  think 
of  all  the  old  people  I  had  known  in  my  time,  scrimping 
along  on  little  or  nothing,  and  of  the  thousands  and  thou 
sands  perhaps  in  every  land  for  whom  life  is  so  hard,  so 
meagre!  If  an  artist  takes  a  special  case  in  hand  and 
depicts  it,  one  weeps,  but  no  scheme  has  been  devised  to 
relieve  the  intense  pressure  on  the  many;  and  we  forget 
so  easily.  I  most  of  all.  If  I  were  a  god,  I  have  often 
said  to  myself,  I  would  try  to  leaven  the  whole  thing  a 
little  more  evenly — but  would  I?  Perhaps  if  I  were  a 
god  I  would  see  a  reason  for  things  as  they  are — a 
strangeness,  a  beauty,  a  requital  not  present  to  these  mor 
tal  eyes. 

These  streets  of  North  Manchester  were  hung  with 
those  same  triangular  banners — red,  white,  blue,  green, 
pink,  orange — which  we  had  seen  in  the  East  and  which 
announced  the  imminence  of  a  local  Chautauqua.  I  do 
not  know  much  about  that  organization,  but  it  certainly 
knows  how  to  advertise  in  country  towns.  In  the  store 
windows  were  quite  striking  pictures  of  Stromboli,  the 
celebrated  band  leader,  a  chrysanthemum  haired,  thin 
bodied  Italian  in  a  braided  white  suit,  who  had  been 
photographed  crouching,  as  though  he  were  about  to 
spring,  and  with  one  thin  hand  raised  high  in  the  air 
holding  a  baton.  His  appearance  was  that  of  one  who 
was  saying:  "One  more  crash  now  and  I  have  won  all." 
And  adjoining  him  in  every  window  was  the  picture  of 
Madame  Adelina  Scherzo,  the  celebrated  soprano  prima 
donna  "straight  from  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House, 
New  York,"  who  was  shown  photographed  with  manager 
and  friends  on  the  observation  platform  of  her  private 


342  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

car.  Madame  Scherzo  was  in  black  velvet,  with  bare 
arms,  shoulders  and  throat,  an  entrancing  sight.  She 
was  rather  pretty  too,  and  a  line  under  the  picture  made 
it  clear  that  she  was  costing  the  management  u$8oo.oo  a 
day,"  a  charge  which  interested  me,  considering  the  size 
of  the  town  and  county  and  the  probable  audiences  which 
could  be  got  out  to  see  anything. 

"How  large  is  the  hall  where  the  Chautauqua  enter 
tainments  are  held?"  I  asked  of  the  local  bookstore  man 
where  I  was  buying  some  picturecards. 

"It  isn't  a  hall;  it's  a  tent,"  he  replied.  "They  bring 
their  own  tent." 

"Well,  how  many  will  it  seat  or  hold?" 

"Oh,  about  fifteen  hundred  people." 

"And  how  many  can  they  count  on  at  any  given  per 
formance?" 

"Oh,  about  a  thousand." 

"Not  more  than  that?"  I  queried. 

"A  thousand  is  a  good  crowd  for  a  fair  night,"  he 
persisted. 

"And  how  much  can  they  average  per  head?"  I  con 
tinued. 

"Oh,  not  more  than  twentyfive  cents.  The  seats  run 
fifteen,  twentyfive,  thirtyfive  and  fifty  cents." 

"Then  say  they  average  forty  cents,"  I  said  to  myself. 
"That  would  mean  that  they  took  in  four  hundred  dol 
lars  at  a  single  performance — or  if  there  are  two  a  day, 
between  seven  and  eight  hundred  dollars  a  day.  And 
this  one  singer  costs  them  eight  hundred." 

I  saw  the  horns  and  hoofs  of  the  ubiquitous  press 
agent. 

"Do  you  think  that  Madame  Scherzo  gets  the  sum 
they  say  she  does?"  I  asked  of  this  same  bookstore  man, 
wondering  whether  he  was  taken  in  by  their  announce 
ment.  He  looked  fairly  intelligent. 

"Yes,  indeed!  She  comes  from  the  Metropolitan 
Opera  House.  I  don't  suppose  she'd  come  out  here  for 
any  less  than  that." 

I  wondered  whether  he  intended  this  as  a  reflection  on 


IN  THE  CHAUTAUQUA  BELT  343 

Indiana  or  a  compliment  to  North  Manchester.  It  was 
a  little  dubious. 

"Well,  that's  a  good  deal  for  a  tent  that  only  seats 
fifteen  hundred,"  I  replied. 

"But  you  don't  want  to  forget  that  they  play  to  two 
audiences  a  day,"  he  returned  solemnly,  as  though  he  had 
solved  it  all. 

I  thought  it  unkind  to  argue  with  him.  Why  shouldn't 
North  Manchester  have  a  celebrated  prima  donna  cost 
ing  eight  hundred  dollars  a  day?  Think  how  the  knowl 
edge  of  that  would  add  to  the  natives'  enjoyment  of  her 
music! 

"You're  right,"  I  said.  "I  hadn't  thought  of  that." 
And  out  I  went. 

While  we  were  trifling  about  getting  ready  to  start,  a 
singular  combination  of  circumstances  produced  an  odd 
case  of  repetition  or  duplication  of  a  set  of  facts  which 
had  occurred  the  year  before,  which  impressed  me  great 
ly,  the  more  so  as  it  corresponded  exactly  with  a  number 
of  similar  instances  in  my  own  life. 

I  might  preface  my  remarks  by  saying  that  throughout 
my  life  experiences  and  scenes  have  to  a  certain  extent 
tended  to  duplicate  or  repeat  themselves.  Nietzsche  re 
marks  somewhere  that  we  all  have  our  typical  experiences. 
It  is  not  a  particularly  brilliant  deduction,  considering  the 
marked  predilections  of  certain  temperaments.  But  when 
we  connect  up  the  fact  with  chemical  or  physical  law,  as 
we  are  likely  some  day  to  do,  it  becomes  highly  significant. 
Personally,  I  am  one  who  believes  that  as  yet  we  have  not 
scratched  the  surface  of  underlying  fact  and  law.  I  once 
believed,  for  instance,  that  nature  was  a  blind,  stumbling 
force  or  combination  of  forces  which  knew  not  what  or 
whither.  I  drew  that  conclusion  largely  from  the  fum 
bling  nonintelligence  (relatively  speaking)  of  men  and 
all  sentient  creatures.  Of  late  years  I  have  inclined  to 
think  just  the  reverse,  i.  e.,  that  nature  is  merely  dark  to 
us  because  of  her  tremendous  subtlety  and  our  own  very 
limited  powers  of  comprehension;  also  that  in  common 


344  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

with  many  other  minor  forces  and  forms  of  intelligence — 
insects  and  trees,  for  example — we  are  merely  tools  or 
implements — slaves,  to  be  exact — and  that  collectively 
we  are  used  as  any  other  tool  or  implement  would  be  used 
by  us. 

Thus  there  is  a  certain  species  of  ant,  the  Dorylii, 
which  is  plainly  a  scavenger  so  far  as  the  surface  of  the 
earth  is  concerned,  appearing  at  the  precise  moment  when 
a  dead  body  is  becoming  offensive  and  burying  and 
devouring  it.  This  may  be  said  to  be  equally  true  of 
buzzards,  jackals,  carrion  crows,  creatures  which  a  Dar 
winian  naturalist  would  explain  as  the  result  of  an  unin 
tentional  pressure — and  natural  selection.  On  the  other 
hand,  current  biology  tends  to  indicate  that  all  is  fore 
shadowed,  prearranged;  that  indications  of  what  will  be 
are  given  ages  before  it  is  permitted  to  appear.  Onto- 
genetic  Orthogenesis  it  is  called,  I  believe.  The  creative 
forces  have  an  amazing  way  of  working.  They  may  use 
strange  means — races  of  men  and  insects,  of  no  particu 
lar  value  to  them — to  accomplish  certain  results.  Thus 
man  might  well  be  a  tool  intended  to  release  certain 
forces  in  the  soil — coal,  iron,  stone,  copper,  gold — and  all 
his  social  organization  and  social  striving  merely  the 
physico-legal  aspects  or  expression  of  the  processes  by 
which  all  things  are  done.  Multiple  unit  forces  must 
work  in  some  harmonious  way,  and  all  these  harmonious 
processes  would  therefore  need  to  be  provided  for.  They 
may  be  the  chemical  and  physical  laws  by  which  we  are 
governed.  How  otherwise  can  one  explain  the  fact  that 
although  there  is  apparently  sufficient  wisdom  in  the  uni 
verse  to  sustain  immense  sidereal  systems  in  order  and 
to  generate  all  the  complex  organisms  which  we  see  and 
can  examine  at  our  leisure,  yet  man  remains  blind  and 
dumb  as  to  the  processes  by  which  he  comes  and  goes? 
He  has  examined  a  little.  He  has  prepared  a  lexicon  of 
laws  whose  workings  he  has  detected.  Beyond  these 
must  be  additional  laws,  or  -so  he  suspects,  but  what  are 
they?  In  the  meantime,  instead  of  nature  permitting 
him  to  go  on  (once  he  has  his  mind  prepared  for  thought 


IN  THE  CHAUTAUQUA  BELT  345 

along  these  lines),  it  strikes  him  down  and  puts  new, 
ignorant  youth  in  his  place — new,  ignorant  generations 
of  youths. 

Actually  (I  sincerely  believe  this)  it  is  not  intended 
that  man  should  ever  be  permitted  to  know  anything. 
The  temperaments  of  the  powers  to  whom  we  pray  are 
not  magnanimous.  Man  is  a  slave,  a  tool.  The  fable  of 
Prometheus  and  the  divine  fire  has  more  of  fact  than  of 
poetry  in  it.  At  every  turn  of  man's  affairs  he  is  arbi 
trarily  and  ruthlessly  and  mockingly  confused.  New 
generations  of  the  dull  and  thick  are  put  forth.  False 
prophets  arise.  Religionists,  warriors,  dreamers  without 
the  slightest  conception  of  the  import  of  that  which  they 
seek  or  do,  arise,  slay,  burn,  confuse.  Man  stands  con 
founded  for  a  time,  a  slave  to  illusion,  toiling  with  forces 
and  by  aid  of  forces  which  he  does  not  understand,  and 
effecting  results  the  ultimate  use  of  which  he  cannot  pos 
sibly  grasp.  We  burn  gas!  For  ourselves  alone?  We 
generate  electricity!  For  ourselves  alone?  We  mine 
coal,  iron,  lead,  etc. — release  it  into  space  eventually. 
For  ourselves  alone?  Who  knows,  really?  By  reason 
of  the  flaming,  generative  chemistry  of  our  bodies  we  are 
compelled  to  go  on.  Why? 

At  the  critical  moment  when  man  becomes  too  inquisi 
tive  he  may  be  once  more  chained  to  the  rock,  Prome 
theus-like,  and  the  eagles  of  ignorance  and  duty  set  at  his 
vitals.  Why  the  astounding  bludgeoning  of  each  other 
by  the  nations  of  Europe?  Cosmically — permanently — 
what  can  they  gain  ? 


CHAPTER  XLIII 

THE  MYSTERY  OF  COINCIDENCE 

As  we  were  starting  for  Wabash  from  here,  a  distance 
of  twenty  miles  or  so,  and  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  it 
began  to  sprinkle.  Now  the  night  before,  as  we  were 
entering  this  place,  Franklin  had  been  telling  me  that  as 
he  had  gone  through  here  the  year  before  about  this  time 
in  the  morning,  homebound  from  a  small  lake  in  this  vi 
cinity,  some  defect  in  the  insulation  of  the  wiring  had 
caused  a  small  fire  which  threatened  to  burn  the  car. 
They  detected  it  in  time  by  smelling  burning  rubber. 
Incidentally,  it  had  started  to  rain,  and  they  had  to  go 
back  to  the  local  garage  for  repairs. 

"I  bet  it  rains  tomorrow,"  Speed  had  observed  as  he 
heard  Franklin's  story. 

"Why?"  I  asked. 

"There's  a  ring  around  the  moon." 

"That  always  means  rain,  does  it?"  I  chaffed. 

He  did  not  answer  direct,  but  concluded:  "I  bet  it 
will  be  raining  by  tomorrow  noon." 

Just  as  we  were  leaving  town,  and  before  we  reached 
a  bridge  which  spans  the  Eel  River  at  this  place,  I  de 
tected  the  odor  of  burning  rubber  and  called  Frank 
lin's  attention  to  it.  At  the  same  time  Speed  smelt  it 
too,  and  stopped  the  car.  We  got  out  and  made  a  search. 
Sure  enough,  a  rubber  covering  protecting  and  sepa 
rating  some  wires  which  joined  in  a  box  was  on  fire,  and 
the  smoke  was  making  a  fine  odor.  We  put  it  out,  but 
as  we  did  so  Franklin  observed,  "That's  funny." 

"What?"  I  inquired. 

"Why,  this,"  he  replied.  "At  this  place  last  year,  in 
a  rain,  this  very  spot,  nearly,  we  got  out  because  we 
smelled  burning  rubber  and  put  out  a  fire  in  this  same 
box." 

346 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  COINCIDENCE       347 

"That  is  odd,"  I  said,  and  then  I  began  to  think  of 
my  own  experiences  in  this  line  and  the  fact  that  so  often 
things  have  repeated  themselves  in  my  life,  in  little  and 
in  big,  in  such  a  curious  way. 

Once,  as  I  told  Franklin  now — the  only  other  time, 
in  fact,  that  I  took  an  important  trip  in  this  way — a  cer 
tain  Englishman  whom  I  had  not  seen  in  years  burst  in 
upon  me  with  a  proposition  that  I  go  to  England  and 
Europe  with  him,  offering  to  see  that  the  money  for  the 
trip  was  raised  and  without  my  turning  a  hand  in  the 
matter — and  quite  in  the  same  way,  only  a  week  before, 
Franklin  himself  had  burst  in  upon  me  with  a  similar 
proposition,  which  I  had  accepted.  Another  time,  at 
the  opening  of  a  critical  period  of  my  life,  I  was  com 
pelled  to  undergo  an  operation  in  the  process  of  which, 
under  ether,  certain  characters  appeared  to  me,  acting  in 
a  particular  way  and  saying  various  things  to  me  which 
impressed  me  greatly  at  the  time;  and  later,  at  another 
critical  period  when,  strangely  enough,  I  was,  much 
against  my  wishes,  undergoing  another  operation,  these 
same  characters  appeared  to  me  and  said  much  the  same 
things  in  the  same  way. 

One  of  the  commonest  of  my  experiences,  as  I  now 
told  Franklin,  had  been  a  thing  like  this.  I  would  be 
walking  along  thinking  of  nothing  in  particular  when 
some  person,  male  or  female,  about  whom  I  cared  noth 
ing,  would  appear,  stop  me,  and  chat  about  nothing  in 
particular.  Let  us  say  he  or  she  carried  a  book,  or  a 
green  parasol,  or  a  yellow  stick,  and  congratulated  me 
upon  or  complained  to  me  concerning  something  I  had  or 
had  not  done.  As  for  my  part,  at  that  particular  mo 
ment  I  might  be  trying  to  solve  some  problem  in  rela 
tion  to  fiction  or  finance — a  crucial  problem.  It  would 
be  raining  or  beautifully  clear  or  snowing.  A  year  or 
two  later,  under  almost  exactly  the  same  circumstances, 
when  I  would  be  trying  to  solve  a  similar  problem,  in 
rain  or  snow  or  clear  weather,  as  the  case  might  be,  I 
would  meet  the  same  person,  dressed  almost  as  before, 
carrying  a  book  or  a  cane  or  green  parasol,  and  we  would 


348  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

talk  about  nothing  in  particular,  and  I  would  say  to  my 
self,  after  he  or  she  were  gone,  perhaps:  "Why,  last  year, 
at  just  about  this  place,  when  I  was  thinking  of  just  some 
such  problem  as  this,  I  met  this  same  person  looking  about 
like  this." 

I  am  not  attempting  to  theorize  concerning  this.  I 
am  merely  stating  a  fact. 

This  system  of  recurrence  applies  not  only  to  situa 
tions  of  this  kind,  but  to  many  others.  The  appearance 
of  a  certain  person  in  my  life  has  always  been  heralded 
by  a  number  of  hunchbacks  who  came  forward,  passed — • 
sometimes  touching  my  elbow — and  frequently  looking 
at  me  in  a  solemn  manner,  as  though  some  subconscious 
force,  of  which  they  were  the  tool,  were  saying  to  me, 
"See,  here  is  the  sign." 

For  a  period  of  over  fifteen  years  in  my  life,  at  the 
approach  of  every  marked  change — usually  before  I 
have  passed  from  an  old  set  of  surroundings  to  a  new 
— I  have  met  a  certain  smug,  kindly  little  Jew,  always 
the  same  Jew,  who  has  greeted  me  most  warmly,  held 
my  hand  affectionately  for  a  few  moments,  and  wished 
me  well.  I  have  never  known  him  any  more  intimately 
than  that.  Our  friendship  began  at  a  sanatorium,  at  a 
time  when  I  was  quite  ill.  Thereafter  my  life  changed 
and  I  was  much  better.  Since  then,  as  I  say,  always 
at  the  critical  moment,  he  has  never  failed.  I  have  met 
him  in  New  York,  Chicago,  the  South,  in  trains,  on 
shipboard.  It  is  always  the  same.  Only  the  other  day, 
after  an  absence  of  three  years,  I  saw  him  again.  I 
am  not  theorizing;  I  am  stating  facts.  I  have  a  feel 
ing,  at  times,  as  I  say,  that  life  is  nothing  but  a  repe 
tition  of  very  old  circumstances,  and  that  we  are  prac 
tically  immortal,  only  not  very  conscious  of  it. 

Going  south  from  North  Manchester,  we  had  an 
other  blowout  in  the  right  rear  tire  and  in  connection 
with  this  there  was  a  discussion  which  may  relate  itself 
to  what  I  have  just  been  saying  or  it  may  not.  The 
reader  may  recall  that  between  Stroudsburg  and  Wilkes- 
Barre,  in  Pennsylvania,  we  had  had  two  blowouts  in 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  COINCIDENCE       349 

this  same  right  rear  wheel,  or  tire,  and  in  connection 
with  the  last  of  these  two  blowouts  just  east  of  Wilkes- 
Barre,  Franklin  had  told  me  that  hitherto — ever  since 
he  had  had  the  car,  in  fact — all  the  trouble  had  been 
in  the  same  right  rear  wheel  and  that,  being  a  good  mys 
tic,  he  had  finally  to  realize  for  himself  that  there  was 
nothing  the  matter  with  the  perfect  idea  of  this  car  as 
it  existed  before  it  was  built  or,  in  other  words,  its 
psychic  unity,  and  hence  that  there  couldn't  be  anything 
wrong  with  this  right  rear  wheel.  You  see?  After  that, 
once  this  had  been  clearly  realized  by  him,  there  had  been 
no  more  trouble  of  any  kind  in  connection  with  this  par 
ticular  quarter  or  wheel  until  this  particular  trip  began. 

"Now  see  here,  Speed,"  I  heard  him  say  on  this  par 
ticular  occasion.  "Here's  a  psychic  fact  I  want  you  to 
get.  We'll  have  to  get  that  right  hand  tire  off  our  minds. 
This  car  is  an  embodiment  of  a  perfect  idea,  an  idea 
that  existed  clear  and  sound  before  this  car  was  ever 
built.  There  is  nothing  wrong  with  that  idea,  or  that  tire. 
It  can't  be  injured.  It  is  in  existence  outside  this  car 
and  they  are  building  other  cars  according  to  it  right 
now.  This  car  is  as  perfect  as  that  idea.  It's  a  whole — 
a  unit.  It's  intact.  Nothing  can  happen  to  it.  It  can't 
be  injured.  Do  you  get  me?  Now  you're  going  to  think 
that  and  we're  not  going  to  have  any  trouble.  We're 
going  to  enjoy  this  trip." 

Speed  looked  at  Franklin,  and  I  felt  as  though  some 
thing  had  definitely  been  "put  over,"  as  we  say — just 
what  I  am  not  quite  able  to  explain  myself.  Anyhow  we 
had  no  more  tire  trouble  of  any  kind  until  just  as  we 
were  nearing  W abash  or  about  half  way  between  the  two 
towns.  Then  came  the  significant  whistle  and  we  climbed 
down. 

"There  you  have  it!"  exclaimed  Franklin  enigmati 
cally.  "You  shouldn't  have  knocked  on  wood,  Speed." 

"What  was  that?"  I  inquired,  interested. 

"Well,  you  remember  where  we  had  the  last  blowout, 
don't  you?" 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "east  of  Wilkes-Barre." 


350  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

"We  haven't  had  any  trouble  since,  have  we?" 

"Not  a  bit." 

"Last  night,  after  you  had  gone  to  bed,  Speed  and  I 
went  to  a  restaurant.  As  we  were  eating,  I  said:  'We've 
had  some  great  tire  luck,  haven't  we?'  Perhaps  I 
shouldn't  have  thought  of  it  as  luck.  Anyhow  he  said, 
'Yes,  but  we're  not  home  yet,'  and  he  knocked  on  wood. 
I  said:  'You  shouldn't  knock  on  wood.  That's  a  con 
fession  of  lack  of  understanding.  It's  a  puncture  in  the 
perfect  idea  of  the  car.  We're  likely  to  have  a  blowout 
in  the  morning.'  And  here  it  is." 

He  looked  at  me  and  smiled. 

"What  is  this,"  I  said,  "a  real  trip  or  an  illusion?" 

He  smiled  again. 

"It's  a  real  trip,  but  it  wants  to  be  as  perfect  as  the 
idea  of  it." 

I  felt  my  conception  of  a  solid  earth  begin  to  spin  a 
little,  but  I  said  nothing  more.  Anyhow,  the  wheel  was 
fixed,  as  well  as  the  psychic  idea  of  it.  And  we  didn't 
have  any  more  tire  trouble  this  side  of  Carmel,  where 
Speed  left  us. 

Going  south  from  North  Manchester,  we  came  to 
Wabash,  a  place  about  as  handsome  as  Warsaw,  if  not 
more  so,  with  various  charming  new  buildings.  It  was  on 
the  Wabash  River — the  river  about  which  my  brother 
Paul  once  composed  the  song  entitled,  "On  the  Banks  of 
the  Wabash  Far  Away"  (I  wrote  the  first  verse  and 
chorus!),  and  here  we  found  a  picture  postcard  on  sale 
which  celebrated  this  fact.  "On  the  Banks  of  the  Wa 
bash  Far  Away,"  it  said  under  a  highly  colored  scene 
of  some  sycamore  trees  hanging  over  the  stream.  As 
my  brother  Paul  was  very  proud  of  his  authorship  of  this 
song,  I  was  glad. 

From  here,  since  it  was  raining  and  we  were  in  a 
hurry  to  reach  Carmel  before  dark,  we  hustled  west  to 
Peru,  about  twenty  miles,  the  cover  up  and  the  storm 
curtains  on,  for  we  were  in  a  driving  rain.  I  could  not 
help  noting  how  flat  Indiana  was  in  this  region,  how 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  COINCIDENCE       351 

numerous  were  the  beech  and  ash  groves,  how  good  the 
roads,  and  how  Hollandesque  the  whole  distant  scene. 
Unlike  Ohio,  there  was  no  sense  here  of  a  struggle 
between  manufacture  and  trade  and  a  more  or  less 
simple  country  life.  The  farmers  had  it  all,  or  nearly 
so.  The  rural  homes  were  most  of  them  substantial, 
if  not  markedly  interesting  to  look  upon,  and  the  small 
towns  charming.  There  were  no  great  factory  chimneys 
cutting  the  sky  in  every  direction,  as  farther  east,  but 
instead,  windmills,  and  silos  and  red  or  grey  barns,  and 
cows,  or  horses,  or  sheep  in  the  fields.  At  Peru  I  asked 
a  little  girl  who  worked  in  the  five-and-ten-cent  store  if 
she  liked  living  in  Peru. 

"Like  it?    This  old  town?    I  should  say  not." 

"Why  not?"  I  replied. 

"Well,  you  ought  to  live  here  for  a  while,  and  you'd 
soon  find  out.  It's  all  right  to  go  through  in  a  ma 
chine,  I  suppose." 

"Well,  where  would  you  rather  be,  if  not  here?"  I 
questioned. 

"Oh,  what's  the  use  wishing — lots  of  places,"  she  re 
plied  irritably,  and  as  if  desiring  to  end  the  vain  dis 
cussion.  "It  never  does  me  any  good  to  wish." 

She  walked  off  to  wait  upon  another  customer,  and  I 
departed. 

South  of  Peru  were  several  county  seats  and  towns  of 
small  size,  which  we  might  have  visited  had  we  chosen 
to  take  the  time;  but  aside  from  passing  through  Ko- 
komo,  in  order  to  see  an  enormous  automobile  works 
with  which  Speed  had  formerly  been  connected,  and  from 
whence,  earlier  in  his  life,  he  had  attempted  to  flee  at 
the  approach  of  the  end  of  all  things,  we  avoided  all 
these  towns.  It  was  raining  too  hard,  and  there  would 
have  been  no  pleasure  in  stopping. 

At  Kokomo,  which  appeared  presently  out  of  a  grey 
mist  and  across  a  middle  distance  of  wet  green  grass 
and  small,  far  scattered  trees,  we  had  a  most  interest 
ing  experience.  We  met  the  man  who  made  the 
first  automobile  in  America,  and  saw  his  factory — the 


352  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

Haynes  Automobile  Company,  of  which  he  was  presi 
dent  and  principal  stockholder,  and  which  was  employ 
ing,  at  the  time  we  were  there,  nearly  three  thousand 
men  and  turning  out  over  two  thousand  cars  a  year, 
nearly  a  car  apiece  for  every  man  and  woman  in  the 
place.  I  saw  no  children  employed. 

The  history  of  this  man,  as  sketched  to  me  before 
hand  by  Franklin  and  Speed,  was  most  interesting. 
Years  before  he  had  been  a  traveling  salesman,  using  a 
light  runabout  in  this  very  vicinity.  Later  he  had  in 
terested  himself  in  motors  of  the  gas  and  steam  variety 
and  had  entered  upon  the  manufacture  of  them.  Still 
later,  when  the  problem  of  direct  transmission  was 
solved  in  France  and  the  automobile  began  to  appear 
abroad,  he,  in  conjunction  with  a  man  named  Apperson, 
decided  to  attempt  to  construct  a  car  here  which  would 
avoid  infringing  all  the  French  patents.  Alone,  really, 
without  any  inventive  aid  from  Apperson,  so  to  speak, 
Haynes  solved  the  problem,  at  least  in  part.  It  was 
claimed  later,  and  no  doubt  it  was  true,  that  he,  along 
with  many  other  mechanicians  attempting  to  perfect  an 
American  car  which  would  avoid  French  lawsuits,  had 
merely  rearranged,  not  improved  upon,  the  French  idea 
of  direct  transmission.  At  any  rate,  he  was  sued,  along 
with  others ;  but  the  American  automobile  manufacturers 
eventually  beat  the  French  patentees  and  remained  in 
possession  of  their  designs.  Of  all  of  these,  Haynes  was 
the  first  American  to  put  an  American  automobile  in 
the  field. 

We  were  shown  over  his  factory  before  meeting  him, 
however,  and  a  fascinating  spectacle  it  proved.  We 
arrived  in  a  driving  rain,  with  the  clouds  so  thick  and 
low  that  you  would  have  thought  it  dusk.  All  the  lights 
in  the  great  concern  were  glowing  as  though  it  were 
night.  A  friendly  odor  of  smoke  and  hot  mould  sand 
and  grease  and  shellac  and  ground  metal  permeated  the 
air  for  blocks  around.  Inside  were  great  rooms,  three 
to  four  hundred  feet  long,  all  of  a  hundred  feet  wide, 
and  glassed  over  top  and  sides  for  light,  in  which  were 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  COINCIDENCE       353 

droves  of  men,  great  companies  of  them,  in  jeans  and 
jumpers,  their  faces  and  hands  and  hair  stained  brown 
or  black  with  oil  and  smoke,  their  eyes  alight  with  that 
keen  interest  which  the  intelligent  workman  always  has 
in  his  work. 

I  never  saw  so  many  automobiles  and  parts  of  auto 
mobiles  in  all  my  life.  It  was  interesting  to  look  at 
whole  rooms  piled  high  with  auto  carriage  frames  or 
auto  motors,  or  auto  tops  or  auto  bodies.  I  never  imag 
ined  that  there  were  so  many  processes  through  which 
all  parts  of  a  machine  have  to  be  put  to  perfect  them, 
or  that  literally  thousands  of  men  do  some  one  little 
thing  to  every  machine  turned  out.  We  stood  and  gazed 
at  men  who  were  polishing  the  lacquered  sides  of  auto 
mobile  bodies  with  their  thumbs,  dipping  them  in  oil  and 
so  rubbing  down  certain  rough  places;  or  at  others  hov 
ering  over  automobile  motors  attached  in  rows  to  gaso 
line  tanks  and  being  driven  at  an  enormous  rate  of  speed 
for  days  at  a  time  without  ever  stopping,  to  test  their 
durability  and  speed  capacity.  It  was  interesting  to  see 
these  test  men  listening  carefully  for  any  untoward  sound 
or  flash,  however  slight,  which  might  indicate  an  error. 
We  pay  very  little,  comparatively,  for  what  we  buy,  con 
sidering  the  amount  of  time  spent  by  thousands  in  sup 
plying  our  idlest  wants. 

And  there  were  other  chambers  where  small  steel,  or 
brass,  or  copper  parts  were  being  turned  out  by  the  thou 
sand,  men  hovering  over  giant  machines  so  intricate  in 
their  motions  that  I  was  quite  lost  and  could  only  develop 
a  headache  thinking  about  them  afterward.  Actually, 
life  loses  itself  at  every  turn  for  the  individual  in  just 
such  a  maze.  You  gaze,  but  you  never  see  more  than  a 
very  little  of  what  is  going  on  about  you.  If  we  could 
see  not  only  all  the  processes  that  are  at  work  simultane 
ously  everywhere,  supplying  us  with  what  we  use  here, 
but  in  addition,  only  a  fraction — that  nearest  us — of  the 
mechanics  and  physics  of  the  universe,  what  a  stricken 
state  would  we  be  in!  Actually,  unless  we  were  pro 
tected  by  lack  of  capacity  for  comprehension,  I  should 


354  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

think  one  might  go  mad.  The  thunder,  the  speed,  the 
light,  the  shuttle  flashes  of  all  the  process — how  they 
would  confuse  and  perhaps  terrify!  For  try  as  we  will, 
without  a  tremendous  enlargement  of  the  reasoning  fac 
ulty,  we  can  never  comprehend.  Vast,  amazing  proc 
esses  cover  or  encircle  us  at  every  turn,  and  we  never 
know.  Like  the  blind  we  walk,  our  hands  out  before 
us,  feeling  our  way.  Like  moths  we  turn  about  the  auto- 
genetic  flame  of  human  mystery  and  never  learn — until 
we  are  burned,  and  not  then — not  even  a  little. 

After  inspecting  the  factory  we  came  into  the  pres 
ence  of  the  man  who  had  built  up  all  this  enterprise. 
He  was  relatively  undersized,  quite  stocky,  with  a  round, 
dumpling-like  body,  and  a  big,  round  head  which  looked 
as  though  it  might  contain  a  very  solid  mass  of  useful 
brains.  He  had  the  air  of  one  who  has  met  thousands, 
a  diplomatic,  cordial,  experienced  man  of  wealth.  I 
sensed  his  body  and  his  mind  to  be  in  no  very  healthy 
condition,  however,  and  he  looked  quite  sickly  and  pre 
occupied.  He  had  a  habit,  I  observed,  contracted  no 
doubt  through  years  of  meditation  and  introspection,  of 
folding  both  arms  over  his  stout  chest,  and  then  lifting 
one  or  the  other  forearm  and  supporting  his  head  with 
it,  as  though  it  might  fall  over  too  far  if  he  did  not. 
He  had  grey-blue  eyes,  the  eyes  of  the  thinker  and  or 
ganizer,  and  like  all  strong  men,  a  certain  poise  and 
ease  very  reassuring,  I  should  think,  to  anyone  compelled 
or  desiring  to  converse  with  him. 

The  story  he  told  us  of  how  he  came  to  build  the 
first  automobile  (in  America)  was  most  interesting. 

Franklin  had  seemed  to  be  greatly  interested  to  dis 
cover  whether  as  an  Indiana  pioneer  this  man  had  bor 
rowed  the  all-important  idea  of  transmission  from  either 
Daimler  or  Panhard,  two  Europeans,  who  in  the 
early  stages  of  the  automobile  had  solved  this  problem 
for  themselves  in  slightly  different  ways,  or  whether  he 
had  worked  out  for  himself  an  entirely  independent 
scheme  of  transmission  and  control.  Franklin  went 
after  him  on  this,  but  he  could  get  nothing  very 


THE  MYSTERY  OF  COINCIDENCE       355 

satisfactory.  The  man,  affable  and  courteous,  explained 
in  a  roundabout  way  that  he  had  made  use  of  two 
clutches,  and  then  toward  the  end  of  the  interview,  when 
Franklin  remarked,  uYou  know,  of  course,  that  the  idea 
of  transmission  was  worked  out  some  time  before  1893" 
(the  year  Haynes  built  his  first  car),  he  replied,  "You 
have  to  give  those  fellows  credit  for  a  great  deal" — a 
very  indefinite  answer,  as  you  see. 

But  to  me  the  man  was  fascinating  as  a  man,  and 
I  was  pleased  to  hear  him  explain  anything  he  would. 

"I  was  already  interested  in  gas  and  steam  engines 
and  motors  of  this  type,"  he  said,  "and  I  just  couldn't 
keep  out  of  it." 

"In  other  words,  you  put  an  old  idea  into  a  new 
form,"  I  suggested. 

"Yes— just  that." 

"Tell  me — who  bought  your  first  car?"  I  inquired. 

"A  doctor  up  in  Chicago,"  he  smiled.  "He  has  it 
yet." 

"Of  course,  you  thought  you  could  make  money  out 
of  it?" 

"Well,  I  built  my  first  car  with  the  idea  of  having 
one  for  myself,  really.  I  have  a  turn  for  mechanics.  I 
borrowed  enough  money  to  begin  manufacturing  at  once 
— took  in  a  partner." 

"And  then  what?" 

"Well,  the  machine  was  a  success.  We  just  grew. 
In  a  few  months  we  were  behind  on  our  orders,  and  al 
ways  have  been  since." 

He  appeared  too  tired  and  weary  to  be  actively  at  the 
head  of  any  business  at  this  time.  Yet  he  went  on  tell 
ing  us  a  little  of  his  trade  struggles  and  what  he  thought 
of  the  future  of  the  automobile — in  connection  with 
farming,  railroads  and  the  like — then  he  suddenly 
changed  to  another  subject. 

"But  I'm  not  nearly  so  interested  in  automobiles  as 
I  was,"  he  observed  smilingly,  at  the  same  time  diving 
into  his  pocket  and  producing  what  looked  like  a  silver 
knife.  "My  son  and  I" — he  waved  an  inclusive  hand 


356  A  BOOSTER  HOLIDAY 

toward  an  adjoining  room  built  of  red  brick,  and  which 
seemed  to  be  flickering  romantically  as  to  its  walls  with 
the  flame  reflections  of  small  furnace  fires — "have  in 
vented  a  thing  which  we  call  stellak,  which  is  five  hun 
dred  times  harder  than  steel  and  cuts  steel  just  as  you 
would  cut  wood  with  an  ordinary  knife." 

"Well,  how  did  you  invent  that?"  I  asked. 

"We  had  need  of  something  of  that  kind  here,  and  my 
son  and  I  invented  it." 

"You  just  decided  what  to  do,  did  you?  But  why  did 
you  call  it  stellak?"  I  persisted. 

"After  Stella,  star,  because  the  metal  turned  out  to 
be  so  bright.  It  has  some  steel  in  it,  too." 

He  shifted  his  arms,  sank  his  head  into  the  palm  of 
his  left  hand,  and  gazed  at  me  solemnly. 

"All  the  processes  are  patented,"  he  added,  with  a 
kind  of  unconscious  caution  which  amused  me.  I  felt  as 
though  he  imagined  we  were  looking  too  curiously  into 
the  workshop,  where  the  perfecting  processes  were  still 
going  on,  and  might  desire  to  steal  his  ideas. 

"There  ought  to  be  a  real  fortune  in  that,"  I  said. 

"Yes,"  he  replied,  with  a  kind  of  lust  for  money  show 
ing  in  his  face,  although  he  was  already  comfortably  rich 
and  daily  growing  richer  as  well  as  sicker,  "we're  already 
behind  on  our  orders.  Everybody  wants  to  see  it.  We 
can  use  a  lot  ourselves  if  we  can  just  make  it  fast  enough." 

There  was  a  time  in  my  life  when  I  would  have  en 
vied  a  man  of  this  type,  or  his  son,  the  mere  possession 
of  money  seemed  such  an  important  thing  to  me.  Later 
on,  it  became  the  sign  manual  of  certain  limitations  of 
thought  which  at  first  irritated  and  then  bored  me.  Now 
I  can  scarcely  endure  the  presence  of  a  mind  that  sees 
something  in  money  as  money — the  mere  possession  of 
it.  If  the  mind  does  not  race  on  to  lovelier  or  more 
important  things  than  money  can  buy,  it  has  no  import 
to  the  world,  no  more,  at  least,  than  is  involved  in  the 
syphoning  of  a  clam.  We  must  have  grocers  and  brew 
ers  and  butchers  and  bakers — but  if  we  were  never  to 
have  more  than  these  or  anything  different  or  new ! ! 


CHAPTER  XLIV 

THE  FOLKS  AT  CARMEL 

THE  run  to  Carmel,  Franklin's  home,  was  not  long 
— say,  forty  miles — and  we  made  it  in  a  downpour  and 
were  silent  most  of  the  way.  It  was  so  dark  and  damp 
and  gloomy  that  no  one  seemed  to  want  to  talk,  and 
yet  I  took  a  melancholy  comfort  in  considering  how  ab 
solutely  cheerless  the  day  was.  I  could  not  help  re 
flecting,  as  we  sped  along,  how  at  its  worst  life  persist 
ently  develops  charm,  so  that  if  one  were  compelled  to 
live  always  in  so  gloomy  a  world,  one  would  shortly  be 
come  inured  to  it,  or  the  race  would,  and  think  nothing 
of  it. 

Once  Speed  called  my  attention  to  a  group  of  cattle 
with  their  heads  to  wind  and  rain,  and  asked,  "Do  you 
know  why  they  stand  that  way?" 

"No,"  I  replied. 

"Well,  all  animals  turn  their  fighting  end  to  any  trou 
ble.  If  those  were  horses,  now,  their  rump  would  be 
to  the  rain." 

"I  see,"  I  said.     "They  fight  with  their  heels." 

"Like  some  soldiers,"  said  Franklin  drily. 

In  another  place  we  saw  another  great  stretch  of 
beech  woods,  silvery  in  the  rain,  and  Franklin  commented 
on  the  characteristic  presence  of  these  groves  everywhere 
in  Indiana.  There  was  one  near  his  home,  he  said,  and 
there  had  been  one  in  every  town  I  had  ever  lived  in  in 
this  state. 

At  dusk  we  reached  Westfield,  only  six  miles  from 
his  home,  where  the  Quakers  lived.  This  was  one  of 
those  typical  community  towns,  with  standardized  cot 
tages  of  grey-white  wood  and  rather  stately  trees  in 
orderly  rows.  Because  of  a  difficulty  here  with  one  of 

357 


358  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

the  lamps,  which  would  not  light,  we  had  to  stop  a  while, 
until  it  grew  quite  dark.  A  lost  chicken  ran  crying  out 
of  a  neighboring  cornfield,  and  we  shooed  it  back  towards 
its  supposed  home,  wondering  whether  the  rain  and  wind 
or  some  night  prowler  would  not  kill  it.  It  was  very 
much  excited,  running  and  squeaking  constantly — a  fine 
call  to  any  fox  or  weasel.  Chickens  are  so  stupid. 

Presently  we  came  into  Carmel,  in  the  night  and  rain, 
but  there  being  few  lights,  I  could  not  make  out  any 
thing.  The  car  turned  into  a  yard  somewhere  and 
stopped  at  a  side  door,  or  porch.  We  got  out  and  a  lit 
tle  woman,  grey  and  small,  cheerful  and  affectionate,  as 
became  a  doting  mother,  came  out  and  greeted  us,  kissing 
Franklin. 

"What  kept  you  so  long?"  she  asked,  in  a  familiar 
motherly  fashion.  "We  thought  you  were  going  to  get 
here  by  noon." 

"So  did  we,"  replied  Franklin  drily.  "I  wired  you, 
though." 

"Yes,  I  know.  Your  father's  gone  to  bed.  He  stayed 
up  as  long  as  he  could.  Come  right  in  here,  please," 
she  said  to  me,  leading  the  way,  while  Franklin  stopped 
to  search  the  car.  I  followed,  damp  and  heavy,  won 
dering  if  the  house  would  be  as  cheerful  as  I  hoped. 

It  was.  It  was  the  usual  American  small-town  home, 
built  with  the  number  of  rooms  supposed  to  be  appro 
priate  for  a  given  number  of  people  or  according  to  your 
station  in  life.  A  middle  class  family  of  some  means, 
I  believe,  is  supposed  to  have  a  house  containing  ten 
or  twelve  rooms,  whether  they  need  them  or  not.  A 
veranda,  as  I  could  see,  ran  about  two  sides,  and  there 
was  a  lawn  with  trees.  Within,  the  furnishings  were 
substantial  after  their  kind — good  middle-west  furniture. 
(Franklin's  studio,  at  the  back,  as  I  discovered  later,  was 
charmingly  appointed.)  There  were  some  of  his  early 
drawings  on  the  wall,  which  love  had  framed  and  pre 
served.  They  reminded  me  of  my  family's  interest  in 
me.  A  tall,  slim,  dark  girl,  anaemic  but  with  glistening 
black  eyes,  came  in  and  greeted  me.  She  was  a  sister, 


THE  FOLKS  AT  CARMEL  359 

I  understood — a  milliner,  by  trade,  taking  her  vacation 
here.  As  she  came,  she  called  to  another  girl  who  would 
not  come — why  I  could  not  at  first  comprehend.  This 
was  a  niece  to  whom  Franklin  more  than  once  on  the 
way  out  had  referred  as  being  superiorly  endowed  tem 
peramentally,  and  as  possessing  what  spiritualists  or 
theosophists  refer  to  as  an  "old  soul,"  she  was  so  intel 
ligent.  He  could  not  explain  her  natural  wisdom  save  on 
the  ground  of  her  having  lived  before. 

"Some  people  just  insist  on  being  shy,"  said  the  sis 
ter.  "They  are  so  temperamental." 

She  showed  me  to  my  room,  and  then  went  off  to  help 
get  us  something  to  eat. 

Alone,  I  examined  my  surroundings,  unpacked  my 
things,  opened  a  double  handful  of  mail,  and  then  came 
down  and  sat  with  the  mother  and  sister  at  supper.  It 
being  late,  bacon  and  eggs  were  our  portion,  and  some 
cake — a  typical  late  provision  for  anyone  in  America. 

I  wish  I  might  accurately  portray,  in  all  its  simplicity, 
and  placidity,  the  atmosphere  I  found  here.  This  house 
was  so  still — and  the  town.  Mrs.  Booth,  Franklin's 
mother,  seemed  so  essentially  the  middle  West,  even  In 
diana  mother,  with  convictions  and  yet  a  genial  tolerance 
of  much.  Making  the  best  of  a  difficult  world  was  writ 
ten  all  over  the  place.  There  was  a  little  boy  here, 
adopted  from  somewhere  because  his  parents  were  dead, 
who  seemed  inordinately  fond  of  Franklin,  as  indeed 
Franklin  seemed  of  him.  I  had  had  stories  of  this  boy 
all  the  way  out,  and  how  through  him  Franklin  was 
gaining  (or  regaining,  perhaps,  I  had  better  say)  a 
knowledge  of  the  ethics  and  governing  rules  of  boy-land. 
It  was  amusing  to  see  them  together  now,  the  boy  with 
sharp,  bird-like  eyes  devouring  every  detail  of  his  older 
friend's  appearance  and  character — Franklin  amused, 
fatherly,  meditative,  trying  to  make  the  most  and  best 
of  all  the  opportunities  of  life.  We  sat  in  the  "front 
room,"  or  "parlor,"  and  listened  to  the  Victrola  render 
ing  pieces  by  Bert  Williams  and  James  Whitcomb  Riley 
and  Tchaikowsky  and  Weber  and  Fields  and  Beethoven 


360  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

— the  usual  medley  of  the  sublime  and  the  ridiculous 
found  in  so  many  musical  collections.  Franklin  had  told 
me  that  of  late — only  in  the  last  two  or  three  years — 
his  father  had  begun  to  imagine  that  there  might  or  must 
be  in  music  something  which  would  explain  the  world's, 
to  him,  curious  interest  in  it!  Hitherto,  on  his  farm, 
where  there  had  been  none,  he  had  scoffed  at  it! 

The  next  morning  I  arose  early,  as  I  thought — eight 
o'clock — and  going  out  on  the  front  porch  encountered 
an  old,  grizzled  man,  who  looked  very  much  like  the 
last  portraits  of  the  late  General  Sherman,  and  who 
seemed  very  much  what  he  was,  or  had  been — a  soldier, 
and  then  latterly  a  farmer.  Now  he  was  all  gnarled  and 
bent.  His  face  was  grizzled  with  a  short,  stubby  grey 
beard.  The  eyes  were  rather  small  and  brown  and 
looked  canny.  He  got  up  with  difficulty,  a  cane  assist 
ing  him,  and  offered  me  a  withered  hand.  I  felt  sym 
pathy  for  all  age. 

"Well,  ya  got  here,  did  ya?"  he  inquired  shortly. 
There  was  a  choppy  brevity  about  his  voice  which  I 
liked.  He  seemed  very  self  sufficient,  genial  and  shrewd, 
for  all  his  years.  "We  expected  ya  last  night.  I  couldn't 
wait  up,  though.  I  did  stay  up  till  eight.  That's  pretty 
late  for  me — usually  go  to  bed  at  seven.  Have  a  nice 
trip?" 

We  sat  down  and  I  told  him.  His  eyes  went  over 
me  like  a  swift  feeling  hand. 

"Well,  you're  just  the  man  I  want  to  talk  to,"  he  said, 
with  a  kind  of  crude  eagerness.  "You  from  New  York 
State?" 

"Yes." 

"Franklin  tells  me  that  Governor  Whitman  has  got 
in  bad,  refusing  to  pardon  that  fellow  Becker.  He  says 
he  thinks  it  will  hurt  him  politically.  What  do  you 
think?" 

"No,"  I  replied.  "I  think  not.  I  believe  it  will  help 
him,  if  he  doesn't  injure  himself  in  any  other  way." 

"That's  what  I  think,"  he  exclaimed,  with  a  kind  of 


THE  FOLKS  AT  CARMEL  361 

defiant  chuckle.  "I  never  did  think  he  knew  what  he  was 
talking  about." 

On  our  way  west,  as  I  have  indicated,  Franklin  had 
been  telling  me  much  of  his  father's  and  his  own  up 
bringing.  They  were  types,  as  I  judged,  not  much  cal 
culated  either  to  understand  or  sympathize  with  each 
other — Franklin  the  sensitive,  perceptive  artist;  his  fa 
ther  the  sheer,  aggressive  political  soldier  type.  The  one 
had  artistic  imagination,  the  other  scarcely  any  imagi 
nation  at  all.  I  could  see  that.  Yet  both  had  a  certain 
amount  of  practical  understanding  backed  by  conviction, 
which  could  easily  bring  them  into  conflict.  I  felt  a  touch 
of  something  here,  as  though  this  father  would  be  rather 
gratified  if  he  could  prove  his  son  to  be  in  a  false  posi 
tion.  It  amused  me,  for  I  knew  from  what  I  had  heard 
that  Franklin  would  be  amused  too.  He  was  so  tolerant. 

More  than  that,  I  discovered  a  streak  in  the  father 
which  I  think  is  to  be  found  in  thousands  of  countrymen 
the  world  over,  in  all  lands,  namely,  that  of  pruriency, 
and  that  in  the  face  of  a  rural  conventionalism  and  even 
a  religious  bent  which  frowns  on  evidence  of  any  tend 
ency  in  that  direction  on  the  part  of  others,  especially 
those  most  immediately  related  to  them.  Rural  life  is  pecu 
liar  in  this  respect,  somewhat  different  to  that  of  the  tribes 
of  the  city,  who  have  so  much  more  with  which  to  sat 
isfy  themselves.  Most  isolated  countrymen- — or  perhaps 
I  had  better  modify  that  and  say  many  confined  to  the 
silences  of  the  woods  and  fields  and  the  ministrations 
of  one  woman,  or  none — have  an  intense  curiosity  in  re 
gard  to  sex;  which  works  out  in  strange,  often  nai've  ways. 
In  this  instance  it  showed  itself  shortly  in  connection 
with  some  inquiry  I  made  in  regard  to  local  politics — how 
the  next  election  was  coming  out  (I  knew  that  would  in 
terest  him)  and  who  the  local  leaders  were.  Soon  this 
resulted  in  the  production  of  a  worn  and  dingy  slip  of 
paper  which  he  handed  me,  chuckling. 

"What  do  you  think  of  that?"  he  asked.  I  took  it 
and  read  it,  smiling  the  while. 

It  seemed  that  some  local  wag — the  owner  of  the  prin- 


362  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

cipal  drug  store — had  written  and  circulated  a  humorous 
double  entendre  description  of  a  golf  game  and  some 
one's  failure  as  a  golfer,  which  was  intended  really  to 
show  that  the  man  in  the  case  was  impotent.  You  can 
easily  imagine  how  the  thing  was  worked  out.  It  was 
cleverly  done,  and  to  a  grown-up  person  was  quite  harm 
less. 

But  the  old  gentleman  was  obviously  greatly  stirred 
by  it.  It  fascinated  and  no  doubt  shocked  him  a  little 
(all  the  more  so  since  sex  was  over  for  him)  and  aroused 
in  him  a  spirit  of  mischief. 

"Well,  it's  very  funny,"  I  said.  "Rather  good.  What 
of  it?" 

"What  do  you  think  of  a  man  that'll  get  up  a  thing 
like  that  and  hand  it  around  where  children  are  apt  to 
get  a  hold  of  it?" 

"As  regards  the  children,"  I  commented,  "it's  rather 
bad,  I  suppose,  although  I've  seen  but  few  children  in 
my  life  that  weren't  as  sexually  minded,  if  not  more  so, 
than  their  elders.  I  wouldn't  advise  putting  this  in  their 
hands,  however.  As  for  grownups,  well,  it's  just  a  trivial 
bit  of  business,  I  should  say,"  I  concluded. 

"You  think  so?"  he  said,  restoring  the  paper  to  his 
vest  pocket  and  twinkling  his  grey  eyes. 

"Yes,"  I  persisted. 

"Well,  the  fellow  that  got  this  up  and  handed  it 
around  here  wants  to  head  the  republican  county  ticket 
this  fall.  I  think  I've  got  him,  with  this.  I  don't  mean 
that  he  shall." 

"Do  you  mean  he's  a  bad  character?"  I  smiled. 

"Oh,  no,  not  that  exactly.  He's  not  a  bad  fellow,  but 
he's  not  a  good  leader.  He's  got  too  big  a  head.  He 
can't  win  and  he  oughtn't  to  be  nominated,  and  I  don't 
mean  that  he  shall  be,  if  I  can  prevent  it." 

He  was  chewing  tobacco  as  he  talked,  quite  as  a  farmer 
at  a  fence  corner,  and  now  he  expectorated  solemnly, 
defiantly,  conclusively. 

"You  don't  like  him  personally,  then?"  I  queried,  curi 
ous  as  to  the  reason  for  this  procedure. 


' 


IN    CAR MEL 

Franklin's  Home  Town 


THE  FOLKS  AT  CARMEL 


363 


"Oh,  I  like  him  well  enough.  He  ain't  no  good  as  a 
leader,  though — not  to  my  way  of  thinking." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  you  intend  to  use  this  against  him 
in  the  campaign?" 

"I  told  him  so,  and  some  of  the  other  fellows  too, 
down  at  the  post  office  the  other  day.  I  told  him  they'd 
better  not  nominate  him.  If  they  did,  I'd  circulate  this. 
He  knows  it'll  kill  him  if  I  do.  I  showed  it  to  the  Quaker 
minister  here  the  other  night,  and  he  'lowed  it  'ud  do  for 
him." 

"What's  a  Quaker  minister?"  I  asked,  suddenly  inter 
rupting  the  main  theme  of  our  conversation,  curious  as 
to  the  existence  of  such  an  official.  "I  never  heard  of  the 
Quakers  having  a  minister.  I  know  they  have  elders  and 
ministers  in  a  general  or  democratic  sense — men  whose 
counsels  are  given  more  or  less  precedence  over  that  of 
others,  but  no  particular  minister." 

"Well,  they  have  out  here,"  he  replied.  "I  don't  know 
where  or  when  they  got  'em.  This  one  lives  right  over 
there  next  the  Quaker  Church. 

"So  you  have  a  Quaker  Church  instead  of  a  meeting 
house,  do  you?"  I  commented. 

"Yes,  and  they  have  congregational  singing  and  an 
organ,"  observed  the  dark-eyed  sister,  who  was  just  com 
ing  up  now.  "You  don't  hear  of  anything  like  that  in 
a  Friends'  meeting  house  in  the  East,  but  you  will  here 
tomorrow."  She  smiled  and  called  us  in  to  breakfast. 

It  appeared  that  our  host  had  eaten  at  six  A.  M.,  or 
five,  but  he  came  in  with  me  for  sociability's  sake. 

The  discussion  of  the  pornographic  jocosity  and  its 
political  use  was  suspended  while  we  had  breakfast,  but 
a  little  later,  the  veranda  being  cleared  and  the  old  gen 
tleman  still  sitting  here,  rocking  and  ruminating,  I  said : 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  you  intend  to  use  that  leaflet 
against  this  man  in  case  he  runs?" 

"I  intend  to  use  it,"  he  replied  definitely,  but  still  with 
a  kind  of  pleasant,  chuckling  manner,  as  though  it  were 
a  great  joke.  "I  don't  think  they'll  nominate  him, 
though,  but  if  they  do,  it'll  kill  him  sure." 


364  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

He  smiled  enigmatically  and  went  on  rocking. 

"But  you're  a  republican?" 

"Yes,  I'm  a  republican." 

"And  he's  a  republican?" 

"Yes." 

"Well,  politics  must  certainly  be  stirring  things  out 
here,"  I  commented. 

He  chuckled  silently,  like  an  old  rooster  in  a  garden, 
the  while  he  moved  to  and  fro  in  his  rocker,  ruminating 
his  chew  of  tobacco,  and  then  finally  he  added,  "It'll  do 
for  him  sure." 

I  had  to  smile.  The  idea  of  stirring  up  a  fight  over 
so  pornographic  a  document  in  a  strictly  religious  com 
munity,  and  thus  giving  it  a  wider  circulation  than  ever 
it  could  have  in  any  other  way,  by  a  man  who  would 
have  called  himself  religious,  I  suppose,  had  an  element 
of  humor  in  it. 

At  breakfast  it  was  that  I  met  the  girl  who  refused 
to  greet  me  the  night  before.  As  I  looked  at  her  for 
the  first  time,  it  struck  me  that  life  is  constantly  brewing 
new  draughts  of  femininity,  calculated  to  bewray  or 
affright  the  world — Helens  or  Circes.  The  moralists 
and  religionists  and  those  who  are  saintly  minded  and 
believe  that  nature  seeks  only  a  conservative  or  coolly 
virtuous  state  have  these  questions  to  answer: 

1 i )  How  is  it  that  for  every  saint  born  into  the  world 
there  is  also  a  cruel  or  evil  minded  genius  born  practi 
cally  at  the  same  time?    The  twain  are  ever  present. 

( 2 )  That  for  every  virtuous  maid  there  is  one  who  has 
no  trace  of  virtue? — possibly  many? 

(3)  That  while  an  evil  minded  person  may  be  reform 
ing,  or  an  immoral  person  becoming  moral,  nature  itself 
(which  religion  is  supposed  to  be  reforming)  is  breeding 
others  constantly,   fresh  and  fresh,  new  types  of  those 
who,  sex  hungry  or  wealth  hungry  or  adventure  hungry, 
have  no  part  or  parcel  with  morality?    The  best  religion 
or  morals  appear  to  be  able  to  do  is  to  contend  with 
nature,  which  is  constantly  breeding  the  un-  or  immoral, 
and  generating  blood  lusts  which  result  in  all  the  crimes 


THE  FOLKS  AT  CARMEL  365 

tve  know,  and  by  the  same  token,  all  the  religions.  How 
is  that? 

These  thoughts  were  generated,  more  or  less,  by  my 
observation  of  this  girl,  for  as  I  looked  at  her,  solid 
and  dimpling,  I  felt  certain  that  here  nature  had  bred 
another  example  of  that  type  of  person  whom  the  moral 
ists  are  determined  to  look  upon  as  oversexed.  She  had 
all  the  provocative  force  that  goes  with  a  certain  kind  of 
beauty.  I  am  not  saying  that  she  was  so — merely  that 
it  was  so  she  impressed  me.  Her  mouth,  for  one  thing, 
was  full — pouty — and  she  was  constantly  changing  its 
expression,  as  if  aware  of  its  import.  Her  eyes  were 
velvety  and  swimming.  Her  neck  and  arms  were  heavy 
• — rounded  in  a  sensuous  way.  She  walked  with  what  to 
me  seemed  a  distinct  consciousness  of  the  lines  of  her 
body,  although  as  a  matter  of  fact  she  may  not  have 
been.  She  was  preternaturally  shy  and  evasive,  looking 
about  as  if  something  very  serious  were  about  to  happen, 
as  if  she  had  to  be  most  careful  of  her  ways  and  looks, 
and  yet  really  not  being  so.  Her  whole  manner  was  at 
once  an  invitation  and  repulsion — the  two  carefully  bal 
anced  so  as  to  produce  a  static  and  yet  an  irritating  state. 
I  half  liked  and  disliked  her.  If  she  had  been  especially 
friendly,  no  doubt  I  should  have  liked  her  very  much. 
Since  she  was  so  wholly  evasive,  I  fancied  that  I  could 
dislike  her  quite  as  much. 

And  at  that  we  got  on  fairly  well.  I  made  no  friendly 
overtures  of  any  kind,  and  yet  I  half  felt  as  if  she  might 
be  expecting  something  of  the  kind.  She  hung  about  for 
a  time,  came  to  and  fro,  and  then  disappeared.  She 
changed  her  dress  while  we  were  down  town,  and  seemed 
even  more  attractive.  She  came  out  and  sat  on  the  porch 
next  to  me  for  a  time,  and  I  tried  to  talk  to  her,  but  she 
made  me  feel  uncomfortable,  as  though  I  were  trying 
to  force  attentions  on  her. 

Apparently  she  was  as  much  a  puzzle  to  some  others 
as  she  was  to  me,  for  Franklin  told  me  that  she  had  once 
run  away  from  the  academy  where  she  was  being 
schooled,  and  had  come  here  instead,  her  parents  being 


3 66  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

dead  and  these  being  her  nearest  friends  or  relatives. 
Her  guardian,  appointed  by  law,  was  greatly  troubled  by 
her.  Also,  that  she  had  quite  a  little  money  coming 
to  her,  and  that  once  she  had  expressed  a  desire  to  be 
given  a  horse  and  gun  and  allowed  to  go  west — a  sixteen- 
year-old  girl !  She  told  me,  among  other  things,  that  she 
wanted  to  go  on  the  stage,  or  into  moving  picture  work. 
I  could  not  help  looking  at  her  and  wondering  what 
storms  and  disasters  might  not  follow  in  the  wake  of 
such  a  temperament.  She  would  be  so  truly  fascinating 
and  possibly  utterly  destructive. 

In  connection  with  this  type  of  temperament  or 
at  any  rate  the  temperament  which  is  not  easily  fixed  in 
one  passional  vise,  I  have  this  to  say:  that,  in  spite  of  all 
the  theories  which  hold  in  regard  to  morals  and  mo 
nogamy,  life  in  general  appears  to  be  chronically  and 
perhaps  incurably  varietistic  and  pluralistic  in  its  tastes 
and  emotions.  We  hear  much  of  one  life,  one  love,  but 
how  many  actually  attain  to  that  ideal — if  it  is  one.  Per 
sonally  I  have  found  it  not  only  possible,  but  by  a  curious 
and  entirely  fortuitous  combination  of  circumstances  al 
most  affectionately  unavoidable,  to  hold  three,  four — 
even  as  many  as  five  and  six — women  in  regard  or  the 
emotional  compass  of  myself,  at  one  and  the  same  time, 
not  all  to  the  same  degree,  perhaps,  or  in  the  same  way, 
but  each  for  certain  qualities  which  the  others  do  not 
possess.  I  will  not  attempt  to  dignify  this  by  the  name 
of  love.  I  do  not  assume  for  a  moment  that  it  is  love, 
but  that  it  is  a  related  state  is  scarcely  to  be  questioned. 
Whether  it  is  a  weakness  or  a  strength  remains  to  be 
tested  by  results  in  individual  cases.  To  some  it  might 
prove  fatal,  to  others  not.  Witness  the  Mormons !  As 
for  myself  I  do  not  think  it  is.  Some  of  my  most  dra 
matic  experiences  and  sufferings,  as  well  as  my  keenest 
mental  illuminations,  have  resulted  from  intimate,  affec 
tionate  contact  with  women.  I  have  learned  most  from 
those  strange,  affectionately  dependent  and  yet  artistic 
souls  who  somehow  crave  physical  and  spiritual  sympathy 
in  the  great  dark  or  light  in  which  we  find  ourselves — 


THE  FOLKS  AT  CARMEL  367 

this  very  brief  hour  here.  Observing  their  moods,  their 
vanities,  their  sanities,  their  affectional  needs,  I  have 
seen  how  absolutely  impossible  it  is  to  balance  up  the 
socalled  needs  of  life  in  any  satisfactory  mainer,  or  to 
establish  an  order  which,  however  seemingly  secure  for 
the  time  being,  will  not  in  the  end  dry  rot  or  decay. 

I  say  it  out  of  the  depths  of  my  life  and  observation 
that  there  is  no  system  ever  established  anywhere  which 
is  wholly  good.  If  you  establish  matrimony  and  monog 
amy,  let  us  say,  and  prove  that  it  is  wholly  ideal  for 
social  entertainment,  or  the  rearing  and  care  of  chil 
dren,  you  at  once  shut  out  the  fact  that  it  is  the  death 
of  affectional  and  social  experience — that  it  is  absolutely 
inimical  to  the  roving  and  free  soul  which  must  comb 
the  world  for  understanding,  and  that  the  spectacles 
which  entertain  the  sober  and  stationary  in  art,  litera 
ture,  science,  indeed  every  phase  of  life,  would  never  be 
if  all  maintained  the  order  and  quiet  which  monogamy 
suggests. 

Yet  monogamy  is  good — nothing  better  for  its  pur 
pose.  Two  souls  are  entitled  to  cling  together  in  affec- 
tional  embrace  forever  and  ever,  if  they  can.  It  is  wholly 
wonderful  and  beautiful.  But  if  all  did  so,  where,  then, 
would  be  a  story  like  Carmen,  for  instance,  or  an  opera 
like  Tristan  and  Isolde,  or  I  Pagliacci,  or  Madame  But 
terfly,  or  Louise  ?  If  we  all  accepted  a  lock-step  routine, 
or  were  compelled  to — but  need  I  really  argue?  Is  not 
life  at  its  very  best  anachronistic?  Does  it  not  grow  by 
horrible  alternatives — going  so  far  along  one  line,  on 
one  leg,  as  it  were,  and  then  suddenly  abandoning  every 
thing  in  that  direction  (to  sudden  decay  and  death,  per 
haps)  and  as  suddenly  proceeding  in  an  entirely  different 
direction  (apparently)  on  the  other  leg?  All  those  who 
find  their  fixed  conditions,  their  orders  and  stable  states 
suddenly  crumbling  about  them  are  inclined  to  cry: 
"There  is  no  God,"  "Life  is  a  cruel  hell,"  "Man  is  a 
beast — an  insane  egoist." 

Friends,  let  me  suggest  something.     Have  faith   to 
believe  that  there  is  a  larger  intelligence  at  work  which 


368  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

does  not  care  for  you  or  me  at  all — or  if  it  does,  only 
to  this  extent,  that  it  desires  to  use  us  as  a  carpenter 
does  his  tools,  and  does  use  us,  whether  we  will  or  no. 
There  is  some  idle  scheme  of  entertainment  (possibly 
self-entertainment)  which  is  being  accomplished  by  some 
power  which  is  not  necessarily  outside  man,  but  working 
through  him,  of  which  he,  in  part,  is  the  expression.  This 
power,  in  so  far  as  we  happen  to  be  essential  or  useful 
to  it,  appears  beneficent.  A  great  or  successful  person 
might  be  inclined  to  look  on  it  in  that  light.  On  the 
other  hand,  one  not  so  useful,  a  physical  failure,  for 
instance — one  blind  or  halt  or  maimed — would  look  upon 
it  as  maleficent,  a  brooding,  destructive  demon,  rejoic 
ing  in  evil.  Neither  hypothesis  is  correct.  It  is  as  good 
as  the  successful  and  happy  feel  it  to  be — as  bad  as  the 
miserable  think  it  is  bad — only  it  is  neither.  It  is  some 
thing  so  large  and  strange  and  above  our  understanding 
that  it  can  scarcely  sense  the  pain  or  joy  of  one  single 
individual — only  the  pains  or  joys  of  masses. 

It  recognizes  only  a  mass  delight  or  a  mass  sorrow. 
Can  you  share,  or  understand,  the  pains  or  delights  of 
any  one  single  atom  in  your  body?  You  cannot.  Why 
may  there  not  be  an  oversoul  that  bears  the  same  rela 
tionship  to  you  that  you  bear  to  the  individual  atoms  or 
ions  of  your  physical  cosmos?  Some  undernourished, 
partially  developed  ion  in  you  may  cry,  "The  power 
which  rules  me  is  a  devil."  But  you  are  not  a  devil.  Nor 
does  it  necessarily  follow  that  the  thing  that  makes  you 
is  one.  You  really  could  not  help  that  particular  atom 
if  you  would.  So  over  us  may  be  this  oversoul  which 
is  as  helpless  in  regard  to  us  as  we  are  in  regard  to  our 
constituent  atoms.  It  is  a  product  of  something  else 
still  larger — above  it.  There  is  no  use  trying  to  find 
out  what  that  is.  Let  the  religionist  call  it  God  if  he 
will,  or  the  sufferer  a  devil.  Do  you  bring  all  your  forti 
tude  and  courage  to  bear,  and  do  all  that  you  can  to 
keep  yourself  busy — serenely  employed.  There  is  no 
other  answer.  Get  all  you  can  that  will  make  you  or 
others  happy.  Think  as  seriously  as  you  may.  Count 


THE  FOLKS  AT  CARMEL  369 

all  the  costs  and  all  the  dangers — or  don't  count  them, 
just  as  you  will — but  live  as  fully  and  intelligently  as  you 
can.  If,  in  spite  of  cross  currents  of  mood  and  passion, 
you  can  make  any  other  or  others  happy,  do  so.  It  will 
be  hard  at  best.  But  strive  to  be  employed.  It  is  the 
only  surcease  against  the  evil  of  too  much  thought. 


CHAPTER  XLV 

AN   INDIANA   VILLAGE 

WHILE  we  were  sitting  on  the  veranda — Franklin's 
father  and  myself — Speed  came  by  on  his  way  down  town, 
and  Mr.  Booth,  having  gathered  a  sense  of  approval, 
perhaps,  for  the  pornographic  document  from  my  atti 
tude,  drew  it  out  and  showed  it  to  him. 

"Gee!"  exclaimed  Speed,  after  reading  it.  "I  must 
get  some  of  those." 

Soon  after,  Franklin  came  out  and,  seeing  the  docu 
ment  and  reading  it,  seemed  troubled  over  the  fact  that 
his  father  should  be  interested  in  such  a  thing.  I  think 
he  felt  that  it  threw  an  unsatisfactory  light  on  his  sire, 
or  that  I,  not  understanding,  might  think  so;  but,  after 
I  made  it  clear  that  it  was  more  or  less  of  a  Cervantesque 
bit  of  humor  to  me,  he  became  more  cheerful. 

A  little  while  thereafter  we  went  downtown,  Frank 
lin  and  I,  to  inspect  the  village,  and  to  see  some  of  those 
peculiar  natives  of  whom  he  had  been  talking.  I  think 
he  must  have  a  much  better  eye  for  rural  and  countryside 
types  and  their  idiosyncrasies  than  I  have,  for  I  failed 
to  gather  any  of  those  gay  nuances  which  somehow  he 
had  made  me  feel  were  there.  Little  things  in  rural 
life  which  probably  attract  and  hold  his  attention  entirely 
escape  me,  as,  for  instance,  the  gaunt  and  spectacled  old 
gentleman  looking  over  his  glasses  into  the  troublesome 
works  of  his  very  small  Ford.  My  own  powers  of  ob 
servation  in  that  direction,  and  my  delight  in  them,  are 
limited  to  a  considerable  extent  by  my  sense  of  drama.  Is 
a  thing  dramatic?  Or  at  least  potentially  so?  If  not,  it 
is  apt  to  lose  interest  for  me.  As  for  Franklin,  he  was 
never  weary  of  pointing  out  little  things,  and  I  enjoyed 
almost  more  of  what  was  to  be  seen  here  and  elsewhere 

37o 


AN  INDIANA  VILLAGE  371 

because  of  his  powers  of  indication  than  from  my  own 
observation. 

Thus,  on  the  way  west,  he  had  been  telling  me  of  one 
man  who  was  almost  always  more  or  less  sick,  or  thought 
he  was,  because,  through  one  of  the  eccentricities  of  hypo 
chondria,  he  discovered  that  one  got  more  attention,  if 
not  sympathy,  being  sick  than  well.  And  when  we  came 
to  the  postoffice  door  here  he  was  before  it,  complaining 
of  a  pain  in  his  chest!  It  seemed  to  me,  in  looking  at 
him,  that  by  a  process  of  thinking,  if  that  were  really 
true,  he  had  made  himself  ill.  He  looked  "very  poorly," 
as  he  expressed  it,  and  as  though  he  might  readily  sink 
into  a  destructive  illness.  Yet  Franklin  assured  me  that 
there  had  really  been  nothing  the  matter  with  him  to 
begin  with,  but  that  jealousy  of  sympathy  bestowed  upon 
a  cripple,  the  one  who  was  to  run  our  car  for  us  south 
from  here,  had  caused  him  to  resort  to  this  method  of 
getting  some  for  himself! 

Also,  there  was  another  young  man  who  had  been 
described  to  me  as  a  village  wag — one  of  three  or  four 
who  were  certain  to  amuse  me;  but  when  he  now  came 
forward  to  greet  me,  and  I  was  told  that  this  was  the 
person,  I  was  not  very  much  interested.  He  was  of  the 
type  that  has  learned  to  consider  himself  humorous, 
necessarily  so,  with  a  reputation  for  humor  to  sustain. 
"I  must  be  witty/'  says  such  a  one  to  himself,  and  so  the 
eye  is  always  cocked,  the  tongue  or  body  set  for  a  comic 
remark  or  movement.  The  stranger  feels  obliged  by  the 
very  atmosphere  which  goes  with  such  a  person  to  smile 
anticipatorially,  as  who  should  say,  something  deliciously 
funny  is  soon  to  be  said.  I  did  not  hear  anything  very 
humorous  said,  however. 

Incidentally,  I  also  met  Bert,  the  crippled  boy,  who 
was  to  be  our  chauffeur  south  from  this  point.  He  was 
a  youth  in  whose  career  Franklin  seemed  greatly  inter 
ested,  largely,  I  think,  because  other  people  of  the  vil 
lage  were  inclined  to  be  indifferent  to  or  make  sport  of 
him.  The  boy  was  very  bright  and  of  a  decidedly  de 
termined  and  characterful  nature.  Although  both  legs, 


372  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

below  the  hips,  but  not  below  the  ankles,  were  prac 
tically  useless,  due  to  a  schooltime  wrestling  bout  and 
fall,  he  managed  with  the  aid  of  a  pair  of  crutches  to  get 
about  with  considerable  ease  and  speed.  There  was  no 
least  trace  of  weakness  or  complaint  or  need  of  sympathy 
in  his  manner.  Indeed,  he  seemed  more  self-reliant  and 
upstanding  than  most  of  the  other  people  I  met  here. 
How,  so  crippled,  he  would  manage  to  run  the  car  puz 
zled  me.  Franklin's  father  had  already  expressed  himself 
to  me  as  opposed  to  the  idea. 

"I  can't  understand  what  he  sees  in  that  fellow,"  he 
said  to  me  early  this  morning.  uHe's  a  reckless  little 
devil,  and  I  don't  think  he  really  knows  anything  about 
machinery.  Frank  will  stick  to  him,  though.  If  it  were 
my  machine,  I  wouldn't  have  him  near  it." 

Now  that  I  looked  at  Bert,  though,  I  felt  that  he  had 
so  much  courage  and  hope  and  optimism— such  an  in 
triguing  look  in  his  eyes — that  I  quite  envied  him.  He 
was  assistant  mail  clerk  or  something  at  the  post  office, 
and  when  I  came  up  and  had  been  introduced  through 
the  window,  he  promptly  handed  me  out  several  letters. 
When  I  told  Franklin  what  his  father  had  said,  he  merely 
smiled.  "The  old  man  is  always  talking  like  that,"  he 
said.  "Bert's  all  right.  He's  better  than  Speed." 

It  takes  a  certain  slow-moving  type  of  intellect  to 
enjoy  or  endure  life  in  a  small  country  town.  To  be  a 
doctor  in  a  place  like  this!  or  a  lawyer!  or  a  merchant! 
or  a  clerk ! 

In  the  main,  in  spite  of  many  preliminary  descriptions, 
Carmel  did  not  interest  me  as  much  as  I  thought  it  would, 
or  might.  It  was  interesting — as  one  says  with  the  wave 
of  a  hand  or  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders.  Of  more  im« 
port  to  me  was  the  Booth  household,  and  the  peculiar 
girl  who  would  not  come  out  to  greet  me  at  first,  and 
Franklin's  father  and  mother  and  sister.  This  day 
passed  rather  dully,  reading  proofs  which  had  been  sent 
me  and  listening  to  passing  expresses  which  tore  through 
here  northward  and  southward,  to  and  from  Indianap 
olis,  only  fifteen  miles  away — never  even  hesitating,  as 


AN  INDIANA  VILLAGE  373 

the  negro  said — and  listening  to  the  phonograph,  on 
which  I  put  all  the  records  I  could  find.  Three  recita 
tions  by  James  Whitcomb  Riley,  "Little  Orphant  Annie," 
"The  Raggedy  Man"  and  "My  Grandfather  Squeers," 
captured  my  fancy  so  strongly  that  I  spent  several  hours 
just  listening  to  them  over  and  over,  they  were  so  de 
lightful.  Then  I  would  vary  my  diet  with  Tchaikowsky, 
Mendelssohn,  Beethoven  and  Bert  Williams. 

During  the  afternoon  Franklin  and  I  went  for  a  walk 
in  a  nearby  woods — a  beech  and  oak  grove — the  beeches 
occupying  one  section  and  the  oaks  another.  Truly,  grey 
and  lowery  described  this  day.  It  was  raining,  but  in 
addition  the  clouds  hung  so  low  and  thick  and  dark  that 
they  were  almost  smothery  in  their  sense  of  closeness. 
And  it  was  warm  and  damp,  quite  like  a  Turkish  bath. 
I  had  arrayed  myself  in  great  thigh-length  rubber  boots 
borrowed  from  Franklin's  father,  and  my  raincoat  and 
a  worthless  old  cap,  so  that  I  was  independent  of  the 
long,  dripping  wet  grass  and  the  frequent  pools  of  water. 

"I  know  what  I'll  do,"  I  exclaimed  suddenly.  "I'll  go 
in  swimming.  It's  just  the  day.  Fine!" 

When  we  reached  the  stream  in  the  depth  of  the  woods 
I  was  even  more  enchanted  with  the  idea,  the  leafy  depth 
of  the  hollow  was  so  dark  and  wet,  the  water  so  seeth 
ing  and  yellow,  a  veritable  whirlpool,  made  so  by  the 
heavy  rains  everywhere  about.  Franklin  would  not  come 
in  with  me.  Instead,  he  stood  on  the  shore  and  told 
me  local  tales  of  growths  and  deaths  and  mishaps  and 
joys  to  many. 

My  problem  was  how  to  undress  without  getting  my 
clothes  wet  and  my  feet  so  muddy  when  I  came  out 
that  I  could  not  put  on  my  boots.  By  thought  I  solved 
it.  I  took  off  my  raincoat,  spread  it  down  on  the  shore 
as  a  floor,  then  took  off  my  boots  and  stood  on  it,  dry 
and  clean.  Under  one  corner  of  it  I  tucked  all  my 
clothes  to  protect  them  from  the  rain;  then,  naked,  I 
plunged  into  the  swirling,  boiling  flood.  It  nearly  swept 
me  away,  so  terrific  was  the  onslaught  of  the  waters.  I 
caught  a  branch  hanging  low,  and,  with  my  feet  braced 


374  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

against  a  few  rocks  below,  lay  flat  and  let  the  water  rush 
over  me.  It  was  wonderful  to  lie  in  this  warm,  yellow 
water,  a  bright  gold  color,  really,  and  feel  it  go  foam 
ing  over  my  breast  and  arms  and  legs.  It  tugged  at  me 
so,  quite  like  a  wrestling  man,  that  I  had  to  fight  it  to 
keep  up.  My  arms  ached  after  a  time,  but  I  hung  on, 
loving  the  feel  of  it.  Sticks  and  leaves  went  racing  past. 
I  would  kick  up  a  stone  and  instantly  it  would  be  swept 
onward  toward  some  better  lodging  place  farther  down. 
I  figured  an  angle  finally  by  which  I  could  make  shore, 
letting  go  and  paddling  sidewise,  and  so  I  did,  coming 
up  bumped  and  scratched,  but  happy.  Then  I  dipped 
my  feet  in  the  water,  stood  on  my  raincoat,  drying  my 
self  with  my  handkerchief,  and  finally,  dressed  and  re 
freshed,  strode  up  shore. 

Then  we  went  off  flower  gathering,  and  made  a  big 
bouquet  of  iron  weed.  He  told  me  how  for  years  he 
had  been  coming  to  this  place,  how  he  loved  the  great 
oaks  and  the  silvery  beeches,  huddled  in  a  friendly  com 
pany  to  the  north,  and  how  he  had  always  wanted  to 
paint  them  and  some  day  would.  The  mania  people  have 
for  cutting  their  names  on  beech  trunks  came  up,  for  here 
were  so  many  covered  with  lover's  hearts — their  names 
inside — and  so  many  inscriptions,  all  but  obliterated  by 
time  that  I  could  not  help  thinking  how  lives  flow  by 
quite  like  the  water  in  the  stream  below. 

Then  we  went  back,  to  a  fine  chicken  dinner  and  a 
banana  pie  made  especially  for  me,  and  the  phonograph 
and  the  rushing  trains,  the  whistles  of  which  I  was  never 
tired  hearing — they  sounded  so  sad. 

Another  black,  rainy  night,  and  then  the  next  morn 
ing  the  sun  came  up  on  one  of  the  most  perfect  days 
imaginable.  It  was  dewy  and  glistening  and  fragrant 
and  colorful — a  wonder  world.  What  with  the  new  wet 
trees  and  grass  as  cool  and  delightful  as  any  day  could 
be,  it  was  like  paradise.  There  was  a  warm  south  wind. 
I  went  out  on  the  lawn  and  played  ball  with  Franklin, 
missing  three  fourths  of  all  throws  and  nearly  breaking 
my  thumb.  I  sat  on  the  porch  and  looked  over  the  morn- 


AN  INDIANA  VILLAGE  375 

ing  paper,  watching  the  outing  automobiles  of  many  na 
tives  go  spinning  by  and  feeling  my  share  in  that  thrill 
and  tingle  which  comes  over  the  world  on  a  warm  Sunday 
morning  in  summer.  It  was  so  lovely.  You  could  just 
feel  that  everybody  everywhere  was  preparing  to  have 
a  good  time  and  that  nothing  mattered  much.  All  the 
best  Sunday  suits,  all  the  new  straw  hats,  all  the  dainty 
frocks,  all  the  everything  were  being  brought  forth  and 
put  on.  Franklin  disappeared  for  an  hour  and  came  back 
looking  so  spick  and  span  and  altogether  Sunday — sum 
mery — and  like  Ormonde  and  Miami  Beach,  that  I  felt 
quite  out  of  it.  I  had  a  linen  suit  and  white  shoes  and 
a  sport  hat,  but  somehow  I  felt  that  they  were  a  little 
uncalled  for  here,  and  my  next  best  wasn't  as  good  as  his. 
Curses !  He  even  had  on  perfect,  glistening,  glorious 
patent  leather  shoes,  and  a  new  blue  suit. 

It  was  while  I  was  sitting  here  inwardly  groaning  over 
my  fate  that  a  young  girl  came  swinging  up,  one  of  the 
most  engaging  I  had  seen  anywhere  on  this  trip — a  lithe, 
dancing  figure,  with  bright  blue  eyes,  chestnut  hair  and 
an  infectious  smile.  I  had  observed  her  approaching 
some  seventy  feet  away,  and  beside  her  Speed,  and  I 
was  wondering  whether  she  was  merely  a  town  girl  of 
his  acquaintance  or  by  any  chance  that  half  sister  of 
whom  I  had  heard  Franklin  and  Speed  speaking  on  the 
way  west,  saying  that  she  was  very  talented  and  was 
hoping  to  come  to  New  York  to  study  music.  Before  I 
had  time  to  do  more  than  compliment  her  in  my  mind, 
she  was  here  before  me,  having  tripped  across  the  grass 
in  a  fascinating  way,  and  was  holding  out  a  hand  and 
laughing  into  my  eyes. 

"We've  been  hearing  about  your  coming  for  several 
days  now.  Speed  wrote  us  nearly  a  week  ago  that  you 
might  come." 

It  flattered  me  to  be  so  much  thought  of. 

"I've  been  hearing  nice  things  of  you,  too,"  I  said, 
studying  her  pretty  nose  and  chin  and  the  curls  about 
her  forehead.  In  any  apologia  pro  vita  sua  which  I  may 


376  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

ever  compose,  I  will  confess  frankly  and  heartily  to  a 
weakness  for  beauty  in  the  opposite  sex. 

She  seemed  inclined  to  talk,  but  was  a  little  bashful. 
From  her  general  appearance  I  gathered  that  she  was 
not  only  of  a  gay,  lightsome  disposition,  but  a  free  soul, 
spiritually  as  yet  not  depressed  by  the  local  morality 
of  the  day — the  confining  chains  of  outward  appearances 
and  inward,  bonehead  fears.  I  had  the  feeling  that  she 
was  beginning  to  be  slightly  sex  conscious  without  having 
solved  any  of  its  intricacies  as  yet — just  a  humming  bird, 
newly  on  the  wing.  She  hung  about,  answering  and  ask 
ing  questions  of  no  import.  Presently  Speed  had  to  leave 
and  she  went  along,  with  a  brisk,  swinging  step.  As  she 
neared  the  corner  of  the  lawn  she  turned  just  for  a 
second  and  smiled. 

Apropos  of  this  situation  and  these  two  girls  who 
curiously  and  almost  in  spite  of  myself  were  uppermost 
in  my  mind — the  second  one  most  particularly,  I  should 
like  to  say — that  of  all  things  in  life  which  seem  to  me 
to  be  dull  and  false,  it  is  the  tendency  of  weak  souls 
in  letters  and  in  life  to  gloze  over  this  natural -chemical 
action  and  reaction  between  the  sexes,  to  which  we  are 
all  subject,  and  to  make  a  pretence  that  our  thoughts 
are  something  which  they  are  not — sweet,  lovely,  noble, 
pure.  It  has  become  a  duty  among  males  and  females, 
quite  too  much  so,  I  think,  to  conceal  from  each  other 
and  from  themselves,  even,  the  fact  that  physical  beauty 
in  the  opposite  sex  stirs  them  physically  and  mentally, 
naturally  leading  to  thoughts  of  union. 

What  has  come  over  life  that  it  has  become  so  super 
fine  in  its  moods?  Why  should  we  make  such  a  puri 
tanic  row  over  the  natural  instincts  of  man?  I  will  admit 
that  in  part  nature  herself  is  the  cause  of  this,  the  instinct 
to  restrain  being  possibly  as  great  as  the  instinct  to 
liberate,  and  that  she  demands  that  you  make  a  pretence 
and  live  a  lie,  only  it  seems  to  me  it  would  be  a  little 
better  for  the  mental  health  of  the  race  if  it  were  more 
definitely  aware  of  this.  Certainly  it  ought  not  be  con- 


AN  INDIANA  VILLAGE  377 

nected  with  religious  illusion.  It  may  not  be  possible, 
because  of  the  varying  temperaments  of  people,  for  any 
one  to  express  what  he  feels  or  thinks  at  any  precise 
moment — its  reception  is  too  uncertain — but  surely  it 
is  permissible  in  print,  which  is  not  unakin  in  its  char 
acter  to  the  Catholic  confessional,  to  say  what  one  knows 
to  be  so. 

All  normal  men  crave  women — and  particularly  beau 
tiful  women.  All  married  men  and  priests  are  supposed, 
by  the  mere  sacrament  of  matrimony  or  holy  orders, 
thereafter  to  feel  no  interest  in  any  but  one  (or  in  the 
case  .of  the  priest  none)  of  the  other  sex — or  if  they  do, 
to  rigidly  suppress  such  desires.  But  men  are  men !  And 
the  women — many  married  and  unmarried  ones — don't 
want  them  to  be  otherwise.  Life  is  a  dizzy,  glittering 
game  of  trapping  and  fishing  and  evading,  and  slaying 
and  pursuing,  despite  all  the  religious  and  socalled  moral 
details  by  which  we  surround  it.  Nature  itself  has  an 
intense  love  of  the  chase.  It  loves  snares,  pitfalls,  gins, 
traps,  masks  and  mummeries,  and  even  murder  and  death 
— yes,  very  much  murder  and  death.  It  loves  nothing  so 
much  as  to  build  up  a  papier-mache  wall  of  convention, 
and  then  slip  round  or  crash  through  it.  It  has  erected 
a  phantasmagoria  of  laws  which  no  one  can  understand, 
and  no  one  can  strictly  adhere  to  without  disaster,  and 
to  which  few  do  strictly  adhere.  Justice,  truth,  mercy, 
right  are  all  abstractions  and  not  to  be  come  at 
by  any  series  of  weights  or  measures.  We  pocket  our 
unfair  losses  or  unearned  gains  and  smile  at  our  luck. 
Curiously,  in  finance  and  commercial  affairs  men  under 
stand  this  and  accept  it  as  a  not  altogether  bad  game. 
It  has  the  element  in  it  which  they  recognize  as  sport. 
When  it  comes  to  sex,  the  feeling  becomes  somewhat  more 
serious.  A  man  who  will  smile  at  the  loss  of  a  hundred, 
a  thousand,  or  even  a  million  dollars,  will  pull  a  grim 
countenance  over  the  loss  of  a  wife  or  a  daughter.  Death 
is  the  price  in  the  judgment  of  some  temperaments.  In 
others  it  is  despair.  Why?  And  yet  nature  plans  these 
traps  and  pitfalls.  It  is  the  all  mother  who  schemes  the 


378  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

Circe  and  Hellenic  temperaments — the  fox,  the  wolf,  the 
lion.  A  raging,  destroying  bull,  which  insists  on  gor 
mandizing  all  the  females  of  a  herd,  is  the  product  of 
nature,  not  of  man.  Man  did  not  make  the  bull  or  the 
stallion,  nor  did  they  make  themselves.  Is  nature  to  be 
controlled,  made  over,  by  man,  according  to  some  theory 
which  man,  a  product  of  nature,  has  discovered? 

Gentlemen,  here  is  food  for  a  dozen  schools  of  phi 
losophy!  Personally,  I  do  not  see  that  any  theory  or 
any  code  or  any  religion  that  has  yet  been  devised  solves 
anything.  All  that  one  can  intelligently  say  is  that  they 
satisfy  certain  temperaments.  Like  those  theorems  and 
formulae  in  algebra  and  chemistry,  which  aid  the  student 
without  solving  anything  in  themselves,  they  make  the 
living  of  life  a  little  easier — for  some.  They  are  not 
a  solution.  They  do  not  make  over  temperaments  which 
are  not  adapted  to  their  purposes.  They  do  not  assist 
the  preternaturally  weak,  or  restrain  the  super-strong. 
They  merely,  like  a  certain  weave  of  mesh  in  fishing,  hold 
some  and  let  others  get  away — the  very  big  and  the 
very  little. 

What  sort  of  moralic  scheme  is  that,  anyhow,  which 
governs  thus?  And  why  is  poor,  dull  man  such  a  uni 
versal  victim  of  it? 


CHAPTER  XLVI 

A   SENTIMENTAL   INTERLUDE 

As  we  had  planned  it,  we  were  to  stay  in  Carmel  only 
three  days — from  Friday  until  Monday — and  then  race 
south  to  Indianapolis,  Terre  Haute,  Sullivan,  Evansville, 
French  Lick,  Bloomington,  back  to  Indianapolis,  and 
after  a  day  or  night  at  Carmel  for  preparation,  I  might 
depart  as  I  had  planned,  or  I  could  stay  here.  Franklin 
suggested  that  I  make  his  home  my  summering  place — my 
room  was  mine  for  weeks  if  I  cared  to  use  it. 

Actually  up  to  now  I  had  been  anxious  to  get  on  and 
have  the  whole  trip  done  with,  but  here  in  Carmel  I 
developed  a  desire  to  stay  and  rest  awhile,  the  country 
about  was  so  very  simple  and  homey;  but  I  concluded 
that  I  must  not. 

Franklin  had  prepared  a  trip  for  Sunday  afternoon 
which  interested  me  very  much.  It  was  to  be  to  the 
home  of  a  celebrated  automobile  manufacturer,  now 
dead,  whose  name,  incidentally,  had  been  in  the  papers 
for  years,  first  as  the  President  of  the  American  Manu 
facturers  Association,  a  very  noble  organization  of  ma 
terialists,  I  take  it,  and  secondarily  as  the  most  strenuous 
opponent  of  organized  labor  that  the  country  up  to  his 
day  had  produced.  I  hold  no  brief  for  organized  labor 
any  more  than  I  do  for  organized  manufacturers,  being 
firmly  convinced  that  both  are  entitled  to  organize  and 
fight  and  that  to  the  victors  should  belong  the  spoils; 
but  at  the  present  writing  I  would  certainly  sympathize 
with  organized  labor  as  being  in  the  main  the  underdog, 
and  wish  it  all  the  luck  in  the  world.  Personally,  I  be 
lieve  in  equilibrium,  with  a  healthy  swinging  of  the 
pendulum  of  life  and  time  to  and  fro  between  the  rich 

379 


380  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

and  the  poor — a  pendulum  which  should  cast  down  the 
rich  of  today  and  elevate  them  again  tomorrow,  or  others 
like  them,  giving  the  underdog  the  pleasure  of  being 
the  overdog  quite  regularly,  and  vice  versa.  I  think 
that  is  what  makes  life  interesting,  if  it  is  interesting. 

But  as  to  this  manufacturer,  in  spite  of  the  entirely 
friendly  things  Franklin  had  to  say  of  him,  I  had  heard 
many  other  stories  relating  to  him — his  contentiousness, 
his  rule  of  underpaying  his  labor,  the  way  he  finally  broke 
down  on  a  trip  somewhere  and  forgot  all  the  details  of 
it,  a  blank  space  in  his  mind  covering  a  period  of  two 
years.  Franklin  told  me  of  his  home,  which  was  much 
more  pleasant  to  hear  about — a  place  down  by  a  river 
near  Indianapolis.  According  to  Franklin,  a  good  part 
of  the  estate  was  covered  with  a  grove  of  wonderful 
trees,  mostly  beech.  As  you  came  to  the  place  there  was 
a  keeper's  lodge  by  the  gate  which  made  you  feel  as  if 
you  were  entering  the  historic  domain  of  some  old  noble 
man.  The  house  was  along  a  beautiful  winding  drive, 
bordered  with  a  hedge  of  all  sorts  of  flowers  usually  in 
bloom  all  through  the  summer.  The  house  was  very 
much  hidden  among  the  beech  trees,  a  large  red  brick 
structure  with  many  windows  and  tall  chimneys ;  the  lower 
story  constructed  of  large  field  boulders,  such  as  are 
found  here.  At  the  front  and  at  the  left  of  the  main 
entrance  this  masonry  projected  to  make  an  immense 
porch,  with  wide  massive  arches  and  posts  of  the  same 
great  boulders. 

"The  first  time  I  ever  saw  it,"  Franklin  explained,  "I 
stepped  out  of  the  car  and  went  up  to  ring  the  bell.  It 

was  a  warm  day,  and  Mrs. was  sitting  alone  at 

the  left  end  of  this  great  porch,  quietly  observing  a  col 
ored  man  servant  who  was  playing  a  hose  on  the  vines 
and  the  main  inside  wall  of  the  porch,  apparently  to 
partly  cool  the  atmosphere.  She  is  a  little,  sweet,  quiet 
woman,  and  as  she  rose  to  greet  me,  something  in  the 
great  house  and  the  boulders  and  in  the  quietness  of 
the  forest  air  about  us,  and  perhaps  in  the  gentle  hu 
mility  of  the  woman  herself,  came  to  me  and  impressed 


A  SENTIMENTAL  INTERLUDE          381 

me  with  the  utter  futility  of  building  houses  at  all;  and 
of  any  man  building  a  house  beyond  the  ability  of  a 
woman  to  touch  lovingly  with  her  hands  and  to  care 
for  and  make  a  home  of.  Some  time  later  when  I  en 
tered  the  house  she  was  sitting  alone  in  the  great  hall  in 
the  sort  of  dusk  that  pervaded  it.  I  somehow  felt  that 
the  house  opposed  her;  that  it  was  her  enemy.  I  don't 
know;  I  may  be  wrong;  it  was  only  an  impression." 

I  have  reproduced  Franklin's  description  as  near  as 
I  can. 

Of  course  I  was  interested  to  go.  It  promised  a  fine 
afternoon;  only  when  the  hour  struck  and  we  were  off  in 
our  best  feathers,  two  tires  blew  up  and  we  were  lucky 
to  get  to  a  garage.  We  limped  back  to  Carmel,  and  I 
returned  to  my  rocking  chair  on  the  front  porch,  watch 
ing  cars  from  apparently  all  over  the  state  go  by,  and 
wondering  what  had  become  of  the  two  girls  I  had  met 
— they  had  disappeared  for  the  day,  apparently — and 
what  could  I  do  to  amuse  myself.  I  listened  to  stories 
of  local  eccentricities,  freaks  of  character,  a  man  who  had 
died  and  left  a  most  remarkable  collection  of  stuffed  birds 
and  animals,  quite  a  museum,  which  he  had  elaborated 
while  running  a  bakery,  or  something  of  that  sort — and 
so  on  and  so  forth.  Local  morality  came  in  for  its  usual 
drubbing — the  lies  which  people  live — the  things  which 
they  seem  and  are  not.  Personally,  I  like  this  subtlety  of 
nature — I  would  not  have  all  things  open  and  aboveboard 
for  anything.  I  like  pretence  when  it  is  not  snivelling, 
Pecksniffery,  calculated  to  injure  someone  for  the  very 
crimes  or  deceits  which  you  yourself  are  committing. 
Such  rats  should  always  be  pulled  from  their  holes  and 
exposed  to  the  light. 

Sitting  on  the  veranda — Franklin  felt  called  upon  to 
do  some  work  in  his  studio,  a  very  attractive  building 
at  the  rear  of  the  lawn — I  grew  lonely  and  even 
despondent!  It  is  a  peculiarity  of  my  nature  that  I  suf 
fer  these  spells  out  of  a  clear  sky  and  at  a  moment's 
notice.  I  can  be  having  the  best  time  in  the  world,  ap 
parently  (I  am  often  amused  thinking  about  it) ,  and  then 


382  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

of  a  sudden,  the  entertainment  ceasing,  the  situation 
changing,  I  find  myself  heavily  charged  with  gloom.  I 
am  getting  old!  (I  had  these  same  spells  at  nineteen  and 
twenty.)  Life  is  slipping  on  and  away!  Relatives  and 
friends  are  dying!  Nothing  endures!  Fame  is  a 
damned  mockery!  Affection  is  insecure  or  self-destroy 
ing!  Soon  I  am  in  the  last  stages  of  despair  and  looking 
around  for  some  means  (speculatively  purely)  to  end  it 
all.  It  is  really  too  amusing — afterwards. 

While  I  was  so  meditating  the  first  young  girl  came 
back,  with  that  elusive,  enigmatic  smile  of  hers,  and  two 
underdone  striplings  of  about  eighteen  or  nineteen,  and 
another  girl,  intended  largely  as  a  foil.  She  was  most 
becomingly  and  tantalizingly  dressed  in  something  which 
defies  description,  and  played  croquet — with  the  two 
youths  who  were  persistently  seeking  her  favor  and  ignor 
ing  the  other  maiden.  I  watched  her  until  I  became  irri 
tated  by  her  coy  self  sufficiency,  and  the  art  with  which 
she  was  managing  the  situation, — a  thing  which  included 
me  as  someone  to  disturb,  too.  I  got  up  and  moved 
round  to  the  other  side  of  the  house. 

That  night  after  dinner,  Franklin  and  I  went  to  In 
dianapolis  on  the  trolley,  and  ignoring  all  the  sights 
went  to  a  great  hotel  grill,  where,  entirely  surrounded 
by  onyx  and  gilt  and  prism-hung  candelabra,  we  had  beer 
in  a  teapot,  with  teacups  as  drinking  vessels,  it  being 
"against  the  law"  to  serve  beer  on  Sunday.  For  the 
same  reason  it  cost  seventy  cents — two  humble  "schoon- 
ers"  of  beer — for  of  course  there  was  the  service  and 
the  dear  waiter  with  his  itching  palm. 

By  ten-thirty  the  next  morning  the  car,  overhauled  and 
cleaned,  was  at  the  door,  our  new  chauffeur  at  the  wheel, 
ready  for  the  run  south. 

I  carried  my  bags  down,  put  them  into  the  car,  and 
sat  in  it  to  wait.  Franklin  was  off  somewhere,  in  the 
heart  of  the  village,  arranging  something.  Suddenly  I 
heard  a  voice.  It  had  the  tone  I  expected.  Actually,  I 
had  anticipated  it,  in  a  psychic  way.  Looking  up  and 


THE    BEST    OF    INDIANAPOLIS 


A  SENTIMENTAL  INTERLUDE          383 

across  a  space  of  lawn  two  houses  away,  I  saw  the  second 
girl  of  this  meeting  place  standing  out  under  an  apple 
tree,  with  a  little  boy  beside  her,  an  infant  the  Speed 
family  had  adopted. 

She  was  most  gay  in  her  dress  and  mood — something 
eery  and  sylph-like. 

"Aren't  you  coming  over  to  say  goodby?"  she  called. 

I  jumped  up,  ashamed  of  my  lack  of  gallantry,  and 
yet  excusing  myself  on  the  ground  that  I  was  too  timid 
to  intrude  before,  and  strolled  over.  She  received  me 
with  a  disturbed  cordiality  which  was  charming. 

"It's  right  mean  of  you,"  she  said. 

"I  was  coming,"  I  protested,  "only  I  expected  to  put 
it  over  until  Thursday — on  my  way  back.  That  sounds 
rather  bad,  doesn't  it,  but  really  I  wanted  to  come,  only 
I  was  a  little  bit  afraid." 

"You— afraid?" 

"Yes.     Don't  you  think  I  can  be?" 

"Yes,  but  not  of  us,  I  should  think.  I  thought  maybe 
you  were  going  away  for  good  without  saying  goodby." 

"Now,  how  could  you?"  I  protested,  knowing  full  well 
to  the  contrary.  "How  nice  we  look  today.  Such  a 
pretty  dress  and  the  clean  white  shoes — and  the  ribbon." 

She  was  as  gay  and  fluffy  as  a  bit  out  of  a  bandbox. 

"Oh,  no,  I  just  put  these  on  because  I  had  to  wear 
them  about  the  house  this  morning."  She  smiled  in  a 
simple,  agreeable  way,  only  I  fancied  that  she  might  have 
dressed  on  purpose. 

"Well,  anyhow,"  I  said — and  we  began  to  talk  of 
school  and  her  life  and  what  she  wanted  to  do.  Just 
as  I  was  becoming  really  interested,  Franklin  appeared, 
carrying  a  package.  "Alas,  here  he  is.  And  now  I'll 
have  to  be  going  soon." 

"Yes,"  she  said,  quite  simply,  and  with  a  little  feel 
ing.  "You'll  be  coming  back,  though." 

"But  only  for  a  day,  I'm  afraid." 

"But  you  won't  go  away  the  next  time  without  saying 
goodby,  will  you?" 


3 84  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

"Isn't  that  kind  of  you,"  I  replied.  "Are  you  sure 
you  want  me  to  say  goodby?" 

ulndeed  I  do.  I'll  feel  hurt  if  you  don't."  She  held 
out  her  hand.  There  was  a  naive  simplicity  about  it  all 
that  quite  disarmed  me  and  made  it  all  innocent  and 
charming. 

"Don't  you  think  I  won't?"  I  asked,  teasingly.  And 
then  as  I  looked  at  her  she  blanched  in  an  odd,  dis 
turbed  way,  and  turning  to  the  boy  called,  "Come  on, 
Billy,"  and  ran  to  a  side  porch  door,  smiling  back  at  me. 

"You  won't  forget,"  she  called  back  from  that  safe 
place. 


CHAPTER  XLVII 

INDIANAPOLIS   AND  A  GLIMPSE   OF   FAIRYLAND 

INDIANAPOLIS,  the  first  city  on  our  way  south  and 
west,  was  another  like  Cleveland,  Buffalo,  Toledo,  only 
without  the  advantage  of  a  great  lake  shore  which  those 
cities  possess.  It  is  boasted  as  one  of  the  principal  rail 
road  centers  of  America,  or  the  world.  Good,  but  what 
of  it?  Once  you  have  seen  the  others,  it  has  nothing 
to  teach  you,  and  I  grow  tired  of  the  mere  trade 
city  devoid  of  any  plan  or  charm  of  natural  sur 
roundings.  The  best  of  the  European  cities,  or  of 
later  years,  Chicago  and  New  York — Chicago  from 
the  lake,  vast,  frowning  giant  that  it  is,  and  New 
York,  like  a  pearly  cloud  lying  beyond  her  great  green 
wet  meadows  on  her  sea — ho,  Americans,  there  are 
two  pictures !  Travel  far  and  wide,  see  all  that  the  earth 
has  to  show,  view  Delhi,  Venice,  Karnak,  the  sacred  tem 
ples  of  the  Ganges — there  are  no  such  scenes  as  these. 
Already  one  beholds  them  with  a  kind  of  awe,  conscious 
that  they  may  not  be  duplicated  within  a  thousand  or 
two  thousands  of  years.  What  could  be  more  astound 
ing  than  New  York's  financial  area,  or  Chicago's  com 
mercial  heart! 

All  that  these  minor  American  cities  like  Indianapolis 
(and  I  do  not  wish  to  belittle  my  own  state  or  its  capital) 
have  to  show  is  a  few  high  buildings  in  imitation  of  New 
York  or  Chicago.  If  any  one  of  them  had  any  natural 
advantages  which  would  suggest  a  difference  in  treat 
ment,  they  would  not  follow  it.  No,  no,  let  us  be  like 
Chicago  or  New  York — as  like  as  we  may.  A  few 
artistic  low  buildings  might  have  more  appeal,  but  that 
would  not  be  like  New  York.  A  city  may  even  have 
been  laid  out  perfectly,  like  Savannah,  but  do  you  think 

385 


386  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

it  appreciates  its  difference  sufficiently  to  wish  to  remain 
so?  Never!  Destroy  the  old,  the  different,  and  let's 
be  like  New  York !  Every  time  I  see  one  of  these  tenth- 
rate  imitations,  copying  these  great  whales,  I  want  to 
swear. 

Yet,  aside  from  this,  Indianapolis  was  not  so  bad — 
not  unpleasing  in  places,  really.  There  is  a  river  there, 
the  White,  with  which  nothing  seems  to  have  been 
done  except  to  build  factories  on  it  at  one  place;  but,  on 
the  other  hand,  a  creek  called  Broad  Ripple — pretty 
name,  that — has  been  walled  and  parked  and  made  most 
agreeable  to  look  upon. 

One  or  two  streets,  it  seemed  to  me,  were  rather  strik 
ing,  lined  as  they  were  with  pretentious  dwellings  and 
surrounded  by  gardens  and  enclosed  in  walls — but,  oh, 
the  little  streets,  the  little  streets! 

"Here  is  where  Senator  Fairbanks  lives." 

"There  is  where  Benjamin  Harrison  lived  before  he 
became  President." 

Quite  so!  Quite  so!  But  I  am  thinking  of  the  little 
streets  just  the  same,  and  the  great,  inordinate  differ 
ences  between  things  at  times. 

Franklin  pointed  out  the  First  and  Second  Churches 
of  Christ,  Scientist — large,  artistic,  snow-white  buildings 
— and  a  little  later,  at  my  request,  the  home  of  James 
Whitcomb  Riley,  laureate  of  all  that  perfect  company 
of  Hoosiers  to  be  found  in  his  sympathetic,  if  small,  vol 
umes.  I  revere  James  Whitcomb  with  a  whole  heart. 
There  is  something  so  delicate,  so  tender,  so  innocent 
not  only  about  his  work  but  about  him.  His  house  in 
Lockerbie  Street  was  about  as  old  and  homely  as  it  could 
be,  as  indeed  was  Lockerbie  Street  itself — but,  shucks, 
who  cares.  Let  the  senators  and  the  ex-presidents  and 
the  beef  packers  have  the  big  places.  What  should  the 
creator  of  "Old  Doc  Sifers"  be  doing  in  a  great  house, 
anyhow?  Think  of  "Little  Orphant  Annie"  being  born  in 
a  mansion !  Never.  Only  over  my  dead  body.  We  didn't 
go  in.  I  wanted  to,  but  I  felt  a  little  bashful.  As  I  say, 
I  had  heard  that  he  didn't  approve  of  me.  I  suggested 


INDIANAPOLIS  387 

that  we  might  come  another  time,  Franklin  knowing  him 
quite  well;  but  I  knew  I  wouldn't.  Yet  all  my  loving 
thoughts  went  out  to  him — most  sympathetic  and  pleasing 
wishes  for  a  long  life  and  a  happy  life. 

The  run  to  Terre  Haute  was  more  or  less  uninterest 
ing,  a  flat  and  lifeless  country.  We  arrived  there  at 
nearly  dusk,  entering  along  a  street  whose  name  was 
changed  to  Wabash  shortly  after  my  brother's  song  be 
came  so  popular.  Among  the  first  things  I  saw  were 
the  buildings  and  grounds  of  the  Rose  Polytechnic  Insti 
tute — an  institution  which,  famous  though  it  is,  was  only 
of  interest  to  me  because  the  man  who  founded  it,  Chaun- 
cey  Rose,  was  once  a  friend  and  admirer  of  my  father's. 
At  the  time  my  father's  mill  burned  in  Sullivan  and  he 
was  made  penniless,  it  was  this  man  who  came  forward 
and  urged  him  to  begin  anew,  offering  to  advance  him 
the  money.  But  my  father  was  too  much  of  a  religious 
and  financial  and  moral  coward  to  risk  it.  He  was  doubt 
ful  of  success — his  nerve  had  been  broken — and  he  feared 
he  might  not  be  able  to  repay  Mr.  Rose  and  so,  in  event 
of  his  dying,  his  soul  would  be  in  danger  of  purgatory. 
Of  such  is  the  religious  mind. 

But  this  city  of  my  birth!  Now  that  I  was  in  it,  it 
had  a  strong  and  mournful  fascination  for  me.  Nothing 
that  I  was  doing  or  being  was  altered  thereby,  but 

Suppose,  once  upon  a  time  in  a  very  strange  wonder 
land,  so  wonderful  that  no  mere  earthborn  mortal  could 
tell  anything  about  it  or  make  you  feel  how  wonderful 
it  was,  you  had  been  a  very  little  boy  who  had  gotten 
in  there  somehow  (how,  he  could  not  tell)  and  after  a 
very  few  years  had  been  taken  out  again,  and  never  after 
that  saw  it  any  more.  And  that  during  that  time  many 
strange  and  curious  things  happened — things  so  strange 
and  curious  that,  though  you  lived  many  years  afterward 
and  wandered  here  and  there  and  to  and  fro  upon  the 
earth,  still  the  things  that  happened  in  that  wonderland, 
the  colors  of  it  and  the  sounds  and  the  voices  and  the 


388  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

trees,  were  ever  present,  like  a  distant  mirage  or  a  back 
ground  of  very  far  off  hills,  but  still  present. 

And  supposing,  let  us  say,  that  in  this  strange  land 
there  was  once  a  house,  or  two  or  three  or  four  or  five 
houses,  what  difference?  In  one  of  them  (someone  later 
said  it  stood  at  Twelfth  and  Walnut  in  a  city  called  Terre 
Haute,  but  if  you  went  there  now  you  could  not  find  it) 
there  was  a  cellar,  damp  and  dark.  The  mother  of  the 
little  boy,  to  whose  skirts  he  used  to  cling  when  any 
thing  troubled  or  frightened  him,  once  told  him  that  in 
the  cellar  of  this  house  lived  a  Cat-man,  and  that  if  he 
went  near  it,  let  alone  down  into  it,  the  Cat-man  might 
appear  and  seize  him  and  carry  him  off. 

The  small  boy  firmly  believed  in  the  Cat-man.  He  lis 
tened  at  times  and  thought  he  heard  him  below  stairs, 
stirring  about  among  the  boxes  and  barrels  there.  In 
his  mind's  eye  he  saw  him,  large  and  dark  and  toothy, 
a  Hottentot's  dream  of  a  demon.  Finally,  after  medi 
tating  over  it  awhile,  he  got  his  brother  Ed  and  con 
ferred  with  him  about  it.  They  decided  that  Prince, 
the  family  dog,  might  help  to  chase  the  Cat-man  out, 
and  so  rid  them  of  this  evil.  Prince,  the  dog,  was  no 
coward;  a  friendly,  gay,  and  yet  ferocious  animal.  He 
was  yellow  and  lithe,  a  fighter.  He  plainly  believed  in 
the  Cat-man  too  (upon  request,  anyhow),  for  the  cellar 
stairs  door  being  opened  and  the  presence  of  the  Cat- 
man  indicated,  he  sniffed  and  barked  and  made  such  an 
uproar  that  the  mother  of  the  children  came  out  and 
made  them  go  into  the  yard.  And  then  they  heard  her 
laughing  over  the  reality  of  the  Cat-man,  and  exclaiming: 
"Yes,  indeed,  you'd  just  better  be  careful  and  not  go 
down  there.  He'll  catch  Prince  too!" 

But  then  there  was  a  certain  tree  in  this  same  yard 
or  garden  where  once  of  a  spring  evening,  at  dusk,  there 
was  a  strange  sound  being  made,  a  sawing  and  rasping 
which  in  later  years  the  boy  was  made  quite  well  aware 
was  a  locust.  But  just  at  that  time,  at  that  age,  in  that 
strange  land,  with  the  soft,  amethystine  shadows  pouring 
about  the  world,  it  seemed  as  though  it  must  be  the  Cat- 


INDIANAPOLIS  389 

man  come  at  last  out  of  the  cellar  and  gotten  into  the 
tree.  The  child  was  all  alone.  His  mother  was  in  the 
house.  Sitting  on  the  back  porch  meditating  over  the 
childish  interests  of  the  day,  this  sound  began — and  then 
the  next  minute  he  was  frantically  clasping  his  mother's 
knees,  burying  his  face  in  her  skirts  and  weeping.  uThe 
Cat-man!  The  Cat-man!"  (Oh,  what  a  horror!  saw 
ing  there  in  that  tree  and  leering!  The  child  saw  his 
eyes!) 

And  then  the  mother  said:  "No,  there  isn't  any  Cat- 
man;  it  is  all  a  foolish  fancy.  There,  there!"  But  to 
the  child,  for  a  long  time,  he  was  real  enough,  just  the 
same. 

And  then  there  was  "Old  Mr.  Watchman,"  an  old  man 
with  one  arm  who  used  to  come  by  the  house  where  the 
small  boy  lived.  He  was  a  watchman  somewhere  at 
a  railroad  crossing,  a  solid,  weary,  brown  faced  white 
haired  man  who  in  winter  wore  a  heavy  great  coat,  in 
summer  a  loose,  brown  jacket,  the  pockets  of  which,  or 
one  pocket,  at  least,  always,  and  every  day,  nearly,  con 
tained  something  which,  if  the  little  boy  would  only  hurry 
out  each  morning  or  evening  and  climb  on  the  fence  and 
reach  for,  he  might  have. 

"Mr.  Watchman!  Mr.  Watchman!"  I  can  hear  him 
crying  yet. 

And  somehow  I  seem  to  see  a  kindly  gleam  in  the 
old  blue  eyes,  and  a  smile  on  the  brown  face,  and  a  big, 
rough  hand  going  over  a  very  little  head. 

"Yes,  there  we  have  it.     That's  the  nice  boy." 

And  then  someone  would  call  from  the  house  or  the 
gate,  a  father  or  mother,  perhaps,  "And  now  what  do  we 
say?" 

"Oh,  thank  you,  Mr.  Watchman.     Thank  you." 

And  then  the  old  watchman  would  go  trudging  on 
ward  with  his  bucket  on  his  arm,  and  the  boy  would 
munch  his  candy  or  his  peanuts  or  his  apple  and  forget 
how  kind  and  strange  old  Mr.  Watchman  really  was — 
and  how  pathetic. 

Then  one  day,  some  time  later,  after  a  considerable 


390  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

absence  or  silence  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Watchman,  the 
small  boy  was  taken  to  see  him  where  he  was  lying  very 
still  in  a  very  humble  little  cottage,  in  a  black  box,  with 
nickels  on  his  eyes — and  the  little  boy  wanted  to  take 
the  nickels,  too. 

Don't  you  suppose  Mr.  Watchman  must  have  smiled, 
wherever  he  was,  if  he  could? 

And  then  one  last  picture,  though  I  might  recall  a 
hundred  from  fairyland — a  thousand.  It  is  a  hot  day 
and  a  house  with  closed  shutters  and  drawn  blinds,  and 
in  the  center  of  a  cool,  still  room  a  woman  sitting  in 
a  loose  negligee,  and  at  her  feet  the  child  playing  with 
the  loose,  worn  slippers  on  her  feet.  The  boy  is  very 
interested  in  his  mother,  he  loves  her,  and  for  that  rea 
son,  to  his  small  mind  her  feet  and  her  worn  slippers 
are  very  dear  to  him. 

"See  poor  mama's  shoes.  Aren't  you  sorry  for  her? 
Think  how  she  has  to  wear  such  poor  torn  shoes  and 
how  hard  she  has  to  work." 

uYes,  poor  shoes.     Poor  mummy." 

"When  you  grow  up  are  you  going  to  get  work  and 
buy  poor  mother  a  good  pair — like  a  nice,  strong,  big 
man?" 

"Yes,  work.    Yes,  I  get  mummy  shoes." 

Suddenly,  something  in  the  mother's  voice  is  too  mov 
ing.  Some  mystic  thread  binding  the  two  operates  to 
convey  and  enlarge  a  mood.  The  child  bursts  into  tears 
over  the  old  pattens.  He  is  gathered  up  close,  wet  eyed, 
and  the  mother  cries  too. 

At  the  same  time,  this  city  of  my  birth  was  identified 
with  so  much  struggle  on  the  part  of  my  parents,  so 
many  dramas  and  tragedies  in  connection  with  relatives 
and  friends,  that  by  now  it  seemed  quite  wonderful  as 
the  scene  of  almost  an  epic.  I  might  try  to  indicate  the 
exact  character  of  it  as  it  related  to  me;  but  instead,  here 
at  any  rate,  I  will  only  say  that  from  the  time  the  mill 
burned  until  after  various  futile  attempts  to  right  our 
selves,  at  Sullivan  and  Evansville,  we  finally  left  this  part 


THE    STANDARD    BRIDGE    OF    FIFTY    YEARS    AGO 
Reelsville,  Indiana 


INDIANAPOLIS  391 

of  the  country  for  good,  it  was  one  unbroken  stretch  of 
privation  and  misery. 

In  that  brilliant  and  yet  defective  story  entitled  "The 
Turn  of  the  Balance,"  by  Brand  Whitlock,  there  is  nar 
rated  the  career  of  an  unfortunate  German  family  which 
might  almost  have  been  ours,  only  in  order  to  deal  with 
so  many  children  as  there  were  in  our  family,  the  causes 
would  necessarily  have  been  further  enlarged,  or  the  data 
greatly  condensed.  In  addition,  there  was  no  such  com 
plete  collapse  involved.  The  more  I  think  of  my  father, 
and  the  more  I  consider  the  religious  and  fearful  type 
of  mind  in  general,  the  more  certain  I  am  that  mere 
breeding  of  lives  (raising  a  family  without  the  skill 
to  engineer  it  through  the  difficulties  of  infancy  and 
youth)  is  one  of  the  most  pathetic,  albeit  humanly  essen 
tial,  blunders  which  the  world  contains.  Yet,  and  per 
haps  wisely  so,  it  is  repeated  over  and  over,  age  in  and 
age  out,  ad  infinitum.  Governments  love  large  families. 
These  provide  population,  recruit  large  armies  and 
navies,  add  the  necessary  percentage  to  the  growth  of 
cities  and  countries,  fill  the  gaping  maws  of  the  factories. 
The  churches  love  large  families,  for  they  bring  recruits 
to  them  and  give  proof  of  that  solid  morality  which 
requires  that  sex  shall  result  in  more  children  and  that 
these  shall  be  adequately  raised  in  the  fear  of  God,  if  not 
in  the  comforts  of  life.  Manufacturers  and  strong  men 
generally  like  large  families.  Where  else  would  they 
get  the  tools  wherewith  they  work — the  cheap  labor — 
and  the  amazing  contrasts  between  poverty  and  wealth, 
the  contemplation  of  which  gives  them  such  a  satisfac 
tion  in  their  own  worth  and  force?  Nature  loves  large 
families,  apparently,  because  she  makes  so  many  of  them. 
Vice  must  love  large  families  because  from  them,  and  out 
of  their  needs  and  miseries,  it  is  principally  recruited. 
Death  must  love  them  too,  for  it  gathers  its  principal  toll 
there.  But  if  an  ordinary  working  man,  or  one  with 
out  a  serene  and  forceful  capacity  for  toil  and  provision, 
could  see  the  ramifications  and  miseries  of  birth  in  pov 
erty,  he  would  not  reproduce  himself  so  freely. 


392  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

My  father  was  of  that  happy  religionistic  frame  of 
mind  which  sees  in  a  large  family — a  very  large  family 
indeed,  for  there  were  thirteen  of  us — the  be  all  and 
the  end  all  of  human  existence.  For  him  work,  the  rear 
ing  of  children,  the  obligations  of  his  religion  and  the 
liberal  fulfilling  of  all  his  social  obligations,  imaginary 
or  otherwise,  were  all  that  life  contained.  He  took  life 
to  be  not  what  it  is,  but  what  it  is  said  to  be,  or  written 
to  be,  by  others.  The  Catholic  volumes  containing  that 
inane  balderdash,  "The  Lives  of  the  Saints,'*  were  truer 
than  any  true  history — if  there  is  such  a  thing — to  him. 
He  believed  them  absolutely.  The  pope  was  infallible. 
If  you  didn't  go  to  confession  and  communion  at  least 
once  a  year,  you  were  eternally  damned.  I  recall  his 
once  telling  me  that,  if  a  small  bird  were  to  come  only 
once  every  million  or  trillion  years  and  rub  its  bill  on  a 
rock  as  big  as  the  earth,  the  rock  would  be  worn  out 
before  a  man  would  see  the  end  of  hell — eternal,  fiery 
torture — once  he  was  in  it.  And  then  he  would  not  see 
the  end  of  it,  but  merely  the  beginning,  as  it  were.  I 
recall  invoking  his  rather  heated  contempt,  on  this  occa 
sion,  by  asking  (or  suggesting,  I  forget  which)  whether 
God  might  not  change  His  mind  about  hell  and  let  some 
body  out  after  a  time.  It  seemed  to  him  that  I  was 
evidently  blasphemously  bumptious,  and  that  I  was 
trifling  with  sacred  things ! 

Unfortunately  for  him,  though  really  not  for  us,  I 
think,  in  the  long  run,  his  children  were  differently 
minded.  Owing  to  an  arrogant  and  domineering  disposi 
tion,  he  insisted  on  the  first  ten,  or  first  five,  Jet  us  say, 
being  educated  in  the  then  Catholic  parochial  schools, 
where  they  learned  nothing  at  all.  Just  before  his  fail 
ure,  or  the  fire  which  ruined  him,  he  gave  the  ground  on 
which  the  church  and  school  of  St.  Joseph  in  Terre  Haute 
now  stand,  to  the  rector  of  that  parish.  Priests  and 
bishops  had  the  run  of  our  home  in  the  days  when  we 
were  prosperous.  After  that  they  did  not  come  so  much, 
except  to  demand  to  know  this,  that,  or  the  other,  or  to 
complain  of  our  conduct.  After  my  father's  failure,  and 


INDIANAPOLIS  393 

because  he  did  not  feel  himself  courageous  enough  to  ven 
ture  on  a  new  enterprise  with  the  aid  of  the  wealthy 
Mr.  Rose,  the  then  sufficiently  grown  children  were  sup 
posed  to  go  to  work,  the  girls  as  housemaids,  if  neces 
sary  (for  their  education  having  been  nothing,  they  had 
no  skill  for  anything  else),  the  boys  as  "hands"  in  the 
mill,  the  one  thing  my  father  knew  most  about,  if  they 
would  (which  they  wouldn't),  in  order  to  learn  a  trade 
of  some  kind. 

Instead  there  was  a  revolt.  They  broke  out  into  the 
world  to  suit  themselves.  To  save  expenses,  my  mother 
had  taken  the  three  youngest,  Ed,  Clair  (or  Tillie,  as  we 
always  called  her)  and  myself,  first  to  a  friend  at  Vin- 
cennes,  Indiana,  for  a  few  weeks'  stay,  then  to  Sullivan, 
where  we  remained  two  years  trying  to  maintain  our 
selves  as  best  we  could;  thence  to  Evansville,  where,  my 
brother  Paul  having  established  himself  rather  comfort 
ably,  we  remained  two  more;  thence  to  Warsaw  (via 
Chicago),  where  we  remained  three  years  and  where  I 
received  my  only  intelligent  schooling;  thence  out  into 
the  world,  for  the  three  youngest  of  us,  at  least,  to  be 
come,  as  chance  might  have  it,  such  failures  or  successes 
as  may  be.  The  others,  too,  after  one  type  of  career  and 
another,  did  well  enough.  Paul,  for  one,  managed  to 
get  a  national  reputation  as  a  song  writer  and  to  live 
in  comfort  and  even  luxury.  All  of  the  girls,  after  vary 
ing  years  and  degrees  of  success  or  failure,  married 
and  settled  down  to  the  average  troubles  of  the  married. 
One  of  these,  the  third  from  the  eldest,  was  killed  by  a 
train  in  Chicago  in  her  thirtysecond  year,  in  1897.  One 
brother — the  youngest  (two  years  younger  than  myself) 
— became  an  actor.  The  brother  next  older  than  myself 
became  an  electrician.  The  fourth  eldest,  and  one  of 
the  most  interesting  of  all,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  a  railroad 
man  by  profession,  finally  died  of  drunkenness  (alcohol 
ism  is  a  nicer  word)  in  a  South  Clark  Street  dive 
in  Chicago,  about  1905.  So  it  goes.  But  all  of  them, 
in  their  way,  were  fairly  intelligent  people,  no  worse 
and  no  better  than  the  average. 


394  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

I  can  see  the  average  smug,  conventional  soul,  if  one 
such  should  ever  chance  to  get  so  deep  into  this  book, 
chilling  and  sniffing  over  this  frank  confession.  My 
answer  is  that,  if  he  knows  as  much  about  life  as  I  do 
or  has  the  courage  to  say  what  he  really  knows  or  be 
lieves,  he  would  neither  be  chilling  or  sniffing.  If  any 
individual  in  this  dusty  world  has  anything  to  be  ashamed 
of,  it  is  certainly  not  the  accidents,  ignorances  and  stark 
vicissitudes  with  which  we  are  all  more  or  less  confronted. 
These  last  may  be  pathetic,  but  they  have  the  merit  nearly 
always  of  great  and  even  beautiful  drama ;  whereas,  the 
treacheries,  shams  and  poltrooneries  which  make  for  the 
creation  and  sustenance  of  the  sniffy  and  the  smug  are 
really  the  things  to  be  ashamed  of.  I  can  only  think  of 
Christ's  scathing  denunciation  of  scribes,  hypocrites  and 
pharisees  and  his  reference  to  the  mote  and  the  beam. 

In  Terre  Haute,  not  elsewhere,  we  moved  so  often  for 
want  of  means  to  pay  our  rent,  or  to  obtain  cheaper 
places,  that  it  is  almost  painful  to  think  of  it  in  retro 
spect,  though  at  the  time  I  was  too  young  to  know  any 
thing  much  about  it.  There  was  so  much  sickness  in  the 
family,  and  at  this  time  a  certain  amount  of  ill  feeling 
between  my  mother  and  father.  Several  of  the  girls 
ran  away  and  (in  seeming,  only  in  so  far  as  the  beliefs  of 
my  father  were  concerned)  went  to  the  bad.  They  did 
not  go  to  the  bad  actually  as  time  subsequently  proved, 
though  I  might  disagree  with  many  as  to  what  is  bad 
and  what  good.  One  of  the  boys,  Paul,  got  into  jail, 
quite  innocently  it  seems,  and  was  turned  out  by  my 
father,  only  to  be  received  back  again  and  subsequently 
to  become  his  almost  sole  source  of  support  in  his  later 
years.  There  was  gloom,  no  work,  often  no  bread,  or 
scarcely  any,  in  the  house.  Strange  shifts  were  re 
sorted  to.  My  mother,  and  my  father,  for  that  matter, 
worked  and  slaved.  Both,  but  she  in  particular,  I  am 
sure,  because  of  her  ambitious,  romantic  temperament, 
suffered  the  tortures  of  the  damned. 


INDIANAPOLIS  395 

Alas,  she  never  lived  to  see  our  better  days!  My 
father  did. 

But  Terre  Haute  !  Terre  Haute  I 

Here  I  was  entering  it  now  for  the  first  time  since  I  had 
left  it,  between  seven  and  eight  years  of  age,  exactly 
thirtyseven  years  before. 


CHAPTER   XLVIII 

THE   SPIRIT   OF   TERRE    HAUTE 

ASIDE  from  these  perfervid  memories  in  connection 
with  it,  Terre  Haute  was  not  so  different  from  Fort 
Wayne,  or  even  Sandusky,  minus  the  lake.  It  had  the 
usual  main  street  (Wabash  Avenue)  lighted  with  many 
lamps,  the  city  hall,  postoffice,  principal  hotel,  and  the 
atres  ;  but  I  will  say  this  for  it,  it  seemed  more  vital  than 
most  of  these  other  places — more  like  Wilkes-Barre  or 
Binghamton.  I  asked  Franklin  about  this,  and  he  said 
that  he  felt  it  had  exceptional  vitality — something  dif 
ferent. 

"I  can't  tell  you  what  it  is/'  he  said.  "I  have  heard 
boys  up  in  Carmel  and  Indianapolis  who  have  been  down 
here  say  it  was  a  'hot  town.'  I  can  understand  now  some 
thing  of  what  they  mean.  It  has  a  young,  hopeful,  seek 
ing  atmosphere.  I  like  it." 

That  was  just  how  it  seemed  to  me,  after  he  had  ex 
pressed  it — ua  seeking  atmosphere."  Although  it 
claimed  a  population  of  only  s'ixtyseven  thousand  or 
thereabouts,  it  had  the  tang  and  go  of  a  much  larger 
place.  That  something  which  I  have  always  noticed  about 
American  cities  and  missed  abroad,  more  or  less,  unless 
it  was  in  Rome,  Paris  and  Berlin,  was  here, — a  crude, 
sweet  illusion  about  the  importance  of  all  things  material. 
What  lesser  god,  under  the  high  arch  of  life  itself,  weaves 
this  spell?  What  is  it  man  is  seeking,  that  he  is  so  hun 
gry,  so  lustful?  These  little  girls  and  boys,  these  half- 
developed  men  and  women  with  their  white  faces  and 
their  seeking  hands — oh,  the  pathos  of  it  all ! 

Before  going  to  an  hotel  for  dinner,  we  drove  across 
the  Wabash  River  on  a  long,  partially  covered  bridge, 
to  what  I  thought  was  the  Illinois  side,  but  which  was 

396 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  TERRE  HAUTE         397 

only  a  trans-Wabash  extension  of  Vigo  County.  Coming 
back,  the  night  view  of  the  city  was  so  fine — tall  chimneys 
and  factories  darkling  along  the  upper  and  lower  shores 
with  a  glow  of  gold  in  the  center — that  Franklin  insisted 
he  must  make  a  memory  note,  something  to  help  him  do 
a  better  thing  later,  so  we  paused  on  the  bridge  while  he 
sketched  the  lovely  scene  by  arc  light.  Then  we  came 
back  to  the  Terre  Haute  House  (or  the  Terrible  Hot 
House,  as  my  brother  Paul  used  to  call  it),  where,  for 
sentimental  reasons,  I  preferred  to  stop,  though  there 
was  a  newer  and  better  hotel,  the  Deming,  farther  up  the 
street.  For  here,  once  upon  a  time,  my  brother  Rome, 
at  that  time  a  seeking  boy  like  any  of  those  we  now  saw 
pouring  up  and  down  this  well  lighted  street — (up  and 
down,  up  and  down,  day  after  day,  like  those  poor  moths 
we  see  about  the  lamp) — was  in  the  habit  of  coming, 
and,  as  my  father  described  it,  in  his  best  suit  of  clothes 
and  his  best  shoes,  a  toothpick  in  his  mouth,  standing  in 
or  near  the  doorway  of  the  hotel,  to  give  the  impression 
that  he  had  just  dined  there. 

"Loafers!  Idle,  good-for-nothings!"  I  can  hear  my 
father  exclaiming  even  now. 

Yet  he  was  not  a  loafer  by  any  means — just  a  hungry, 
thirsty,  curious  boy,  all  too  eager  for  the  little  life  his 
limited  experience  or  skill  would  buy.  He  was  the  one 
who  finally  took  to  drink  and  disappeared  into  the  mael' 
strom  of  death — or  is  it  life? 

And  here,  once  in  her  worst  days,  my  mother  came  to 
look  for  work,  and  got  it.  In  later  years,  Paul  came  here 
to  be  tendered  a  banquet  by  friends  in  the  city  because  of 
his  song  about  this  river — "a  tribute  to  the  state" — as  one 
admirer  expressed  it. 

Not  that  I  Cared  at  all,  really.  I  didn't.  It  wouldn't 
have  made  any  vast  difference  if  we  had  gone  to  the 
other  hotel — only  it  would  have,  too!  We  arranged 
our  belongings  in  our  adjoining  rooms  and  then  went  out 
for  a  stroll,  examining  the  central  court  and  the  low  halls 
and  the  lobby  as  we  passed.  I  thought  of  my  mother — 
and  Rome,  outside  on  the  corner — and  Paul  at  his  senti- 


398  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

mental  banquet,  and  then — well,  then  I  felt  "very  sad 
like,"  as  we  would  say  in  Indiana. 

Up  the  street  from  our  hotel  was  the  Deming,  the 
principal  hotel  of  this  city — "our  largest,"  as  the  average 
American  would  say — just  like  every  other  hotel  in  Amer 
ica  which  at  this  day  and  date  aspires  to  be  "our  largest" 
and  to  provide  the  native  with  that  something  which  he 
thinks  is  at  once  recherche  (curse  that  word!)  and 
"grand,"  or  "gorgeous."  Thus,  there  must  be  (i)  a 
group  of  flamboyantly  uniformed  hall  boys  and  porters, 
all  braids  and  buttons,  whose  chief,  if  not  sole  duty,  is 
to  exact  gratuities  from  the  unwilling  and  yet  ecstatic 
visitor;  (2)  an  hotel  clerk,  or  three  or  five,  who  will  make 
him  feel  that  he  is  a  mere  upstart  or  intruder,  and  that 
it  is  only  by  the  generosity  of  a  watchful  and  yet  kindly 
management  (which  does  not  really  approve  of  him) 
that  he  is  permitted  to  enter  at  all;  (3)  maids,  mani- 
curesses,  and  newsstand  salesladies,  who  are  present  solely 
to  make  him  understand  what  he  has  missed  by  marrying, 
and  how  little  his  wife  knows  about  dress,  or  taste,  or 
life;  (4)  a  lobby,  lounging  room,  shoeshining  parlor  and 
barber  shop,  done  entirely  in  imitation  onyx;  (5)  a  din- 
ingroom  in  imitation  of  one  of  the  principal  chambers  of 
the  Palace  of  Vairsigh;  (6)  a  grill  or  men's  restaurant, 
made  to  look  exactly  like  a  western  architect's  dream  of 
a  Burgundian  baronial  hall;  (7)  a  head  waiter  who  can 
be  friends  only  with  millionaires  or  their  equivalent,  the 
local  richest  men;  (9)  a  taxi  service  which  can  charge 
as  much  if  not  more  than  any  other  city's.  This  last  is 
absolutely  indispensable,  as  showing  the  importance  of 
the  city.  But  nevertheless  we  went  here,  after  prowling 
about  the  city  for  some  time,  to  enjoy  a  later  supper — or 
rather  to  see  if  there  were  any  people  here  who  were 
worth  observing  at  this  favorite  American  midnight 
pastime.  There  were — in  their  way. 

Those  that  we  saw  here — in  the  grill — suggested  at 
once  the  aspirations  and  the  limitations  of  a  city  of  this 
size  and  its  commercial  and  social  predilections.  For 
here,  between  eleven  and  one,  came  many  that  might  be 


m 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  TERRE  HAUTE         399 

called  "our  largest"  or  "our  most  successful"  men,  of  a 
solid,  resonant,  generative  materiality.  The  flare  of  the 
cloth  of  their  suits!  The  blaze  of  their  skins  and  eyes! 
The  hardy,  animal  implication  of  their  eyes ! 

And  the  women — elder  and  younger !  wives  and 
daughters  of  those  men  who  have  only  recently  begun  to 
make  money  in  easy  sums  and  so  to  enjoy  life.  They 
reminded  me  of  those  I  had  seen  in  the  Kittatinny  at 
Delaware  Water  Gap.  What  breweries,  what  wagon 
works,  what  automobile  factories  may  not  have  been 
grinding  day  and  night  for  their  benefit!  Here  they 
were,  most  circumspect,  most  quiescent,  a  gaudy  and  yet 
reserved  company;  but  as  I  looked  at  some  of  them 
I  could  not  help  thinking  of  some  of  the  places  I  had 
seen  abroad,  more  especially  the  Abbaye  Theleme  in 
Paris  and  the  Carlton  at  Monte  Carlo,  where,  freed  from 
the  prying  eyes  of  Terre  Haute  or  Columbus  or  Peoria 
in  summer  or  winter,  the  eager  American  abroad  is  free 
to  dance  and  carouse  and  make  up,  in  part,  for  some 
of  the  shortcomings  of  his  or  her  situation  here.  Yes, 
you  may  see  them  there,  the  sons  and  daughters  of  these 
factory  builders  and  paint  manufacturers,  a  feverish 
hunger  in  their  faces,  making  up  for  what  Indiana  or 
Illinois  or  Iowa  would  never  permit  them  to  do.  Blood 
will  tell,  and  the  brooding  earth  forces  weaving  these 
things  must  have  tremendous  moods  and  yearnings  which 
require  expression  thus. 

But  what  interested  me  more,  and  this  was  sad  too, 
were  the  tribes  and  shoals  of  the  incomplete,  the  botched, 
the  semi-articulate,  all  hungry  and  helpless,  who  never  get 
to  come  to  a  place  like  this  at  all — who  yearn  for  a  taste 
of  this  show  and  flare  and  never  attain  to  the  least  taste 
of  it.  Somehow  the  streets  of  this  city  suggested  them 
to  me.  I  know  the  moralists  will  not  agree  with  me  as  to 
this,  but  what  of  it?  Haven't  you  seen  them  of  a 
morning — very  early  morning  and  late  evening,  in  their 
shabby  skirts,  their  shapeless  waists,  their  messes  of  hats, 
their  worn  shoes,  trudging  to  and  from  one  wretched 
task  and  another,  through  the  great  streets  and  the  splen- 


400  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

did  places?  And  are  you  content  always  to  dismiss  them 
as  just  dull,  or  weak,  or  incapable  of  understanding  those 
finer  things  which  you  think  you  understand  so  well  ?  Are 
there  not  some  possibly  who  are  different?  Oh,  you  brash 
thinkers  who  dismiss  them  all  so  lightly — Not  so  fast, 
pray!  Do  not  lean  too  heavily  upon  the  significance  of 
your  present  state.  Tonight,  tomorrow,  may  begin  the 
fierce  blasts  that  will  sweep  away  the  last  vestige  of 
what  was  strength,  or  pride,  or  beauty,  or  power, 
or  understanding.  Even  now  the  winds  of  disaster  may 
be  whining  under  your  door.  A  good  body  is  something, 
a  brain  is  more.  Taste,  beauty,  these  are  great  gifts, 
not  achievements.  And  that  which  gave  so  generously 
can  as  certainly  take  away  again.  When  you  see  them 
trudging  so  hopelessly,  so  painfully,  their  eyes  riveted  by 
the  flashing  wonders  of  life,  let  it  be  not  all  contempt 
or  all  pride  with  which  you  view  them.  Hold  to  your 
strength  if  you  will,  or  your  subtlety;  but  this  night,  in 
your  heart,  on  your  knees,  make  obeisance.  These  are 
tremendous  forces  among  which  we  walk.  With  their 
powers  and  their  results  we  may  have  neither  part  nor 
lot.  What,  slave,  do  you  strut  and  stare  and  make  light 
of  your  fellow?  This  night  may  you  be  with  them, 
not  in  paradise,  but  in  eternal  nothingness — voiceless, 
dreamless,  not  even  so  much  as  a  memory  of  anything 
elsewhere.  Nothing! 
Even  so !  Even  so ! 


CHAPTER    XLIX 

TERRE  HAUTE  AFTER  THIRTYSEVEN  YEARS 

FOR  good,  bad,  or  indifferent,  whether  it  had  been 
painful  or  pleasant,  the  youth  time  that  I  had  spent  in 
Terre  Haute  had  gone  and  would  never  come  back  again. 
My  mother,  as  I  remembered  her  then — and  when  is  a 
mother  more  of  a  mother  than  in  one's  babyhood? — was 
by  now  merely  a  collection  of  incidents  and  pains  and 
sweetnesses  lingering  in  a  few  minds!  And  my  father, 
earnest,  serious-minded  German,  striving  to  do  the  best 
he  knew,  was  gone  also — all  of  thirteen  years.  Those 
brothers  and  sisters  whose  ambitions  were  then  so  keen, 
whose  blood  moods  were  so  high,  were  now  tamed  and 
sober,  scattered  over  all  the  eastern  portion  of  America. 
And  here  was  I  walking  about,  not  knowing  a  single  soul 
here  really,  intent  upon  finding  one  man  perhaps  who  had 
known  my  father  and  had  been  kind  to  him ;  for  the  rest, 
looking  up  the  houses  in  which  we  had  lived,  the  first 
school  which  I  had  ever  attended,  the  first  church,  and 
thinking  over  all  the  ills  we  had  endured  rather  than  the 
pleasures  we  had  enjoyed  (for  of  the  latter  I  could 
scarcely  recall  any),  was  all  with  which  I  had  to  employ 
myself. 

In  the  first  place,  the  night  before  coming  in,  because  it 
was  nearly  dark  and  because  neither  Franklin  nor  I  cared 
to  spend  any  more  time  in  this  southern  extension  than 
we  could  help,  I  wanted  to  find  and  look  at  as  many  of 
the  old  places  as  was  possible  in  the  summer  twilight, 
for  more  than  look  at  them  once  I  could  scarcely,  or  at 
least,  would  not  care  to  do.  It  was  not  a  difficult  matter. 
At  the  time  we  lived  there,  the  city  was  much  smaller, 
scarcely  more  than  one-third  its  present  size,  and  the 
places  which  then  seemed  remote  from  the  business  heart 

401 


402  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

were  now  a  five-minute  walk,  if  so  much.  I  could  see, 
in  coming  in,  that  to  get  to  Ninth  and  Chestnut,  where 
I  was  born,  I  would  have  to  go  almost  into  the  business 
section,  or  nearly  so.  Again,  the  house  at  Twelfth  and 
Walnut,  where  the  first  few  years  of  my  life  were  spent — 
say  from  one  to  five — was  first  on  our  route  in,  and  it 
was  best  to  have  Bert  turn  in  there,  for  the  street  label- 
ings  were  all  very  plain  and  it  was  easy  to  find  our  way. 
It  was  very  evident  that  Terre  Haute  was  another  manu 
facturing  city,  and  a  prosperous  one,  for  smoke  filled  the 
air  and  there  was  a  somewhat  inspiriting  display  of  chim 
neys  and  manufacturing  buildings  in  one  direction  and 
another.  The  sound  of  engine  bells  and  factory  whistles 
at  six  o'clock  seemed  to  indicate  a  cheerful  prosperity  not 
always  present  in  larger  and  seemingly  more  successful 
cities.  Franklin,  as  I  have  said,  noted  a  temper  or  flare 
of  youth  and  hope  about  the  town,  for  he  spoke  of  it. 

"I  like  this  place.  It  is  interesting,"  he  said.  "I  had 
no  idea  Terre  Haute  was  so  fine  as  this." 

As  for  me,  my  mind  was  recurring  to  old  scenes  and 
old  miseries,  commingled  with  a  child's  sensations.  Once 
in  this  town,  in  company  with  Ed  and  Al,  I  picked  coal 
off  the  tracks  because  we  had  no  coal  at  home.  Some 
where  here  Ed  and  I,  going  for  a  sack  of  cornmeal,  lost 
the  fifty  cents  with  which  to  buy  it,  and  it  was  our  last 
fifty  cents.  In  a  small  house  in  Thirteenth  Street,  as  I 
have  elsewhere  indicated,  the  three  youngest  of  us  were 
sick,  while  my  father  was  out  of  work,  and  my  mother 
was  compelled  to  take  in  washing.  In  some  other  house 
here — Seventh  and  Chestnut,  I  believe — there  was  a 
swing  in  a  basement  where  I  used  to  swing  all  alone  by 
the  hour,  enjoying  my  own  moods  even  at  that  time. 
From  a  small  brick  house  in  Fourteenth  Street,  the  last 
I  ever  knew  of  Terre  Haute,  I  carried  my  father's  dinner 
to  him  in  a  pail  at  a  woolen  mill,  of  which  he  was  fore 
man  or  manager  or  something.  He  was  never  exactly  a 
day  laborer  for  anyone.  I  remember  a  "carder"  and  a 
"fuller"  and  a  "blower"  and  a  "spinning  jenny"  and  his 
explaining  their  functions  to  me.  Somewhere  in  this  town 


AFTER  THIRTYSEVEN  YEARS          403 

was  the  remainder  of  St.  Joseph's  School,  or  its  site,  at 
least,  where  at  five  years  of  age  I  was  taken  to  learn  my 
A  B  C's,  and  where  a  nun  in  a  great  flaring  white  bonnet 
and  a  black  habit,  with  a  rattling  string  of  great  beads, 
pointed  at  a  blackboard  with  a  stick  and  asked  us  what 
certain  symbols  stood  for.  I  recall  even  now,  very  faintly, 
it  is  true,  having  trouble  remembering  what  the  sounds 
of  certain  letters  were. 

I  remember  the  church  attached  to  this  school,  and  a 
bell  in  a  tower  that  used  to  get  turned  over  and  wouldn't 
ring  until  some  one  of  us  boys  climbed  up  and  turned  it 
back — a  great  treat.  I  remember  boating  on  a  small, 
muddy  pool,  on  boards,  and  getting  my  feet  very  wet,  and 
almost  falling  in,  and  a  serious  sore  throat  afterwards.  I 
remember  a  band — the  first  I  ever  heard — (Kleinbind's 
Terre  Haute  Ringold  Band  as  my  father  afterwards  ex 
plained  was  its  official  title) — marching  up  the  street,  the 
men  wearing  red  jackets  with  white  shoulder  straps  and 
tall  black  Russian  shakos.  They  frightened  me,  and  I 
cried.  I  remember  once  being  on  the  Wabash  River  with 
my  brother  Rome  in  a  small  boat — the  yellow  water 
seemed  more  of  a  wonder  and  terror  to  me  then  than  it 
does  now — and  of  his  rocking  the  boat  and  of  my  scream 
ing,  and  of  his  wanting  to  whip  me — a  brotherly  bit  of 
tenderness,  quite  natural,  don't  you  think?  I  remember, 
at  Twelfth  and  Walnut,  a  great  summer  rainstorm,  when 
I  was  very  young,  and  my  mother  undressing  me  and  tell 
ing  me  to  run  out  naked  in  the  great  splattering  drops 
making  bubbles  everywhere — an  adventure  which  seemed 
very  splendid  and  quite  to  my  taste.  I  remember  my 
brothers  Paul  and  Rome  as  grownups — men  really — 
when  they  were  only  boys,  and  of  my  elder  sisters — girls 
of  thirteen,  fifteen,  seventeen,  seeming  like  great  strong 
women. 

Life  was  a  strange,  colorful,  kaleidoscopic  welter  then. 
It  has  remained  so  ever  since. 

Here  I  was  now,  and  it  was  evening.  As  we  turned 
into  Walnut  Street  at  Twelfth  I  recognized  one  of  the 
houses  by  pictures  in  the  family  and  by  faint  memories 


404  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

and  we  stopped  to  give  Franklin  time  to  sketch  it.  It 
was  a  smoky,  somewhat  treeless  neighborhood,  with 
a  number  of  children  playing  about,  and  long  rows 
of  one-story  workingmen's  cottages  receding  in  every 
direction.  Once  it  had  a  large  yard  with  a  garden  at 
the  back,  apple,  pear  and  cherry  trees  along  the  fence, 
a  small  barn  or  cow  shed,  and  rows  of  gooseberry  and 
currant  bushes  bordering  several  sides.  Now  all  that 
was  gone,  of  course.  The  house  had  been  moved  over  to 
the  very  corner.  Small  houses,  all  smoky,  had  been 
crowded  in  on  either  hand  so  tightly  that  there  were 
scarcely  sidewalks  between  them.  I  asked  a  little  girl 
who  came  running  over  as  the  car  stopped  and  Franklin 
began  sketching,  uWho  lives  over  there?" 

"Kifer,"  she  replied. 

" What  does  he  do?" 

"He  works.  They  keep  boarders.  What  are  you 
making?" 

"A  picture." 

"Of  that  house?" 

"Yes." 

"What  for?" 

"Well,  I  used  to  live  there  and  I've  come  back  all  the 
way  from  New  York  to  see  it." 

"Oh !"  And  with  that  she  climbed  up  on  the  running 
board  to  look  on,  but  Franklin  shooed  her  off. 

"You  mustn't  shake  the  car,"  he  said. 

She  got  down,  but  only  to  confer  with  six  or  seven 
other  children  who  had  gathered  by  now,  and  all  of  whom 
had  to  be  enlightened.  They  ran  back  for  a  moment  or 
two  to  inform  inquisitive  parents,  but  soon  returned,  in 
creased  in  number.  They  stood  in  a  group  and  surveyed 
the  house  as  though  they  had  never  seen  it  before.  Ob 
viously,  it  had  taken  on  a  little  luster  in  their  eyes.  They 
climbed  up  on  the  running  boards  and  shook  the  car  until 
Franklin  was  compelled  to  order  them  down  again, 
though  it  was  plain  that  he  was  not  anxious  so  to  do. 
Bats  were  circling  in  the  air  overhead — those  fine,  rico 
cheting  winged  mice.  There  were  mosquitoes  about,  an- 


TERRE  HAUTE  FROM  WEST  OF  THE  WABASH 


AFTER  THIRTYSEVEN  YEARS          405 

noying  numbers  of  them — horrible  clouds,  in  fact,  which 
caused  me  to  wonder  how  people  endured  living  in  the 
neighborhood.  People  walked  by  on  their  way  home 
from  work,  or  going  out  somewhere,  young  men  in  the 
most  dandified  and  conspicuous  garbs,  and  on  porches  and 
front  steps  were  their  fathers  in  shirt  sleeves,  and  women 
in  calico  dresses,  reading  the  evening  paper.  I  studied 
each  detail  of  the  house,  getting  out  and  looking  at  it 
from  one  side  and  another,  but  I  could  get  no  least  touch 
of  the  earlier  atmosphere,  and  I  did  not  want  to  go  in. 
Interiorly  it  held  no  interest  for  me.  I  could  not  remem 
ber  how  it  looked  on  the  inside  anyhow. 

After  leaving  this  house,  I  decided  to  look  up  Ninth 
and  Chestnut,  where  I  was  born,  but  not  knowing  the 
exact  corner  (no  one  in  our  family  having  been  able  to 
tell  me)  I  gave  it  up,  only  to  notice  that  at  that  moment 
I  was  passing  the  corner.  I  looked.  There  were  small 
houses  on  every  hand.  Which  one  was  ours,  or  had  been? 
Or  was  it  there  at  all  any  more?  Useless  speculation.  I 
did  not  even  trouble  to  stop  the  car. 

But  from  here  I  directed  the  car  to  Eighth  and  Chest 
nut,  a  corner  at  which,  in  an  old  red  brick  house  still 
standing,  my  mother,  as  someone  had  informed  me,  had 
once  essayed  keeping  borders.  I  was  so  young  at  the 
time  I  could  scarcely  remember — say  six  or  seven.  All 
I  could  recall  of  it  was  that  here  once  was  a  little  girl  in 
blue  velvet,  with  yellow  hair,  the  daughter  of  some  woman 
of  comparative  (it  is  a  guess)  means,  who  was  stopping 
with  us,  and  who,  because  of  her  blue  velvet  dress  and 
her  airs,  seemed  most  amazing  to  me,  a  creature  out  of 
the  skies.  I  remember  standing  at  the  head  of  the  stairs 
and  looking  into  her  room — or  her  mother's,  and  seeing 
a  dresser  loaded  with  silver  bits,  and  marveling  at  the 
excellence  of  such  a  life.  Just  that,  and  nothing  more, 
out  of  a  whole  period  of  months.  Now  I  could  only 
recall  that  the  house  was  of  brick,  that  it  had  a  lawn  and 
trees,  a  basement  with  a  brick  floor,  and  a  sense  of  aban 
donment  and  departed  merit.  Finding  it  at  this  late  date 
was  not  likely,  but  we  ran  the  car  around  there  and 


406  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

stopped  and  looked.  There  was  a  brick  house  there,  old 
but  improved.  Was  it  the  same?  Who  can  tell,  or  what 
matter,  really?  The  difference  was  to  me. 

We  think  of  life  as  a  definite,  enduring  thing,  some  of 
us;  but  what  a  thin  shadow,  or  nothingness,  it  must  be, 
really,  when  the  past  and  your  youth  and  all  connected 
with  it  goes  glimmering  thus  like  smoke.  I  always  think 
of  that  passage  in  Job  (XIV :  1-2 )  "Man  that  is  born  of  a 
woman  is  of  few  days,  and  full  of  trouble.  He  cometh 
forth  like  a  flower  and  is  cut  down;  he  fleeth  also  as  a 
shadow,  and  continueth  not."  When  I  think  of  that,  and 
how  ideas  and  notions  and  fames  and  blames  go  glimmer 
ing,  I  often  ask  myself  what  is  it  all  about,  anyhow,  and 
what  are  we  here  for,  and  why  should  anyone  worry 
whether  they  are  low  or  high,  or  moral  or  immoral. 
What  difference  does  it  really  make?  And  to  whom? 
Who  actually  cares,  in  the  long  run,  whether  you  are 
good,  bad  or  indifferent?  There  is  much  talk  and  much 
strutting  to  and  fro  and  much  concealment  of  our  past 
ills  and  shames,  and  much  parading  of  our  present  lux 
uries  and  well  beings.  But,  my  good  friends,  the  wise 
know  better.  You  cannot  talk  to  a  man  or  woman  of 
capacity  or  insight  or  experience  of  any  of  these  sharp 
distinctions.  To  them  they  do  not  exist.  We  are  all  low 
or  high  according  to  our  dynamic  energy  to  get  and  keep 
fame,  money,  notoriety,  information,  skill — no  more.  As 
for  the  virtuous,  and  those  supposedly  lacking  in  virtue — 
the  honest  and  those  who  are  dishonest — kind  heaven,  we 
haven't  the  first  inklings  of  necessary  data  wherewith  to 
begin  even  to  formulate  a  theory  of  difference !  We  do 
not  know,  and  I  had  almost  said  we  cannot  know,  though 
I  am  not  one  to  be  cocksure  of  anything — not  even  of  the 
impossibility  of  perfection. 

Allons !  Then  we  moved  the  car  to  Seventh  and  Chest 
nut  Streets,  where  had  stood  another  house  near  a  lumber 
yard.  In  this  house  wras  the  swing  in  the  basement  where 
I  used  to  swing,  the  sunlight  pouring  through  a  low  cellar 
window,  such  days  as  I  chose  to  play  there.  Outside  was 
a  great  yard  or  garden  with  trees,  and  close  at  hand 


AFTER  THIRTYSEVEN  YEARS          407 

a  large  lumber  yard — it  seemed  immense  to  me  at  the 
time — pleasingly  filled  with  odoriferous  woods,  and  offer 
ing  a  great  opportunity  for  climbing,  playing  hide  and 
seek,  running  and  jumping  from  pile  to  pile,  and  avoiding 
the  watchman  who  wanted  to  catch  us  and  give  us  a  good 
beating  for  coming  into  it  at  all. 

And  beyond  that  was  a  train  yard  full  of  engines  and 
cars  and  old  broken  down  cabooses  and  a  repair  shop. 
When  I  was  most  adventurous  I  used  to  wander  even 
beyond  the  lumber  yard  (there  was  a  spur  track  going 
out  into  this  greater  world),  staring  at  all  I  saw,  and 
risking  no  doubt  my  young  life  more  than  once.  At  one 
time  I  fell  off  a  car  on  which  I  had  adventurously 
climbed  and  bruised  my  hand  quite  seriously.  At  an 
other  time  I  climbed  up  into  a  worn  out  and  discarded 
engine,  and  examined  all  the  machinery  with  the  utmost 
curiosity.  It  all  seemed  so  amazing  to  me.  Engineers, 
firemen,  brakemen,  yard  men — how  astonishing  they  all 
seemed — the  whole  clangorous,  jangling  compact  called 
life. 

But  this  house  was  now  a  mere  myth  or  rumor — some 
thing  that  may  never  have  existed  at  all — so  unreal  are 
our  realities.  It  had  gone  glimmering.  There  was  no 
house  here  anything  like  that  which  I  had  in  mind.  There 
was  a  railroad  yard,  quite  a  large  one,  probably  greatly 
enlarged  since  my  day.  There  was  a  lumber  yard  ad 
joining  it,  very  prosperous  looking,  and  enclosed  by  a 
high  board  fence,  well  painted,  and  a  long,  old,  low 
white  house  with  green  shutters.  We  stopped  the  car 
here  and  I  meditated  on  my  mother  and  sisters  and  on 
some  laughing  school  teachers  who  took  meals  with  us 
here  at  this  time.  Then  we  moved  on.  I  was  glad  to  go. 
I  was  getting  depressed. 

The  last  place  we  tried  for  was  that  much  mentioned 
in  Thirteenth  Street,  Thirteenth  between  Walnut  and 
Chestnut,  as  some  one  of  my  relatives  had  said,  but  I 
could  not  find  it.  When  we  reached  the  immediate  vicin 
ity  we  found  a  hundred  such  houses — I  had  almost  said  a 
thousand — and  it  was  a  poor,  sorrowful  street,  the  homes 


408  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

of  the  most  deficient  or  oppressed  or  defeated.  I  wanted 
to  hurry  on,  and  did  so,  but  musingly  and  romantically, 
in  passing,  I  picked  out  one  which  stood  next  to  an  alley 
— an  old,  small,  black,  faded  house,  and  said  to  myself, 
that  must  be  ours.  But  was  it?  Because  of  uncertainty 
my  heart  could  not  go  out  to  it.  It  went  out  only  to  that 
other  house  back  in  the  clouds  of  memory,  where  my 
mother  and  my  sisters  and  brothers  were  all  assembled. 

And  this  street — yes,  my  heart  went  out  to  it — oh,  very 
much.  I  felt  as  though  I  would  be  willing  to  trade  places 
with  and  take  up  the  burden  of  the  least  efficient  and 
most  depressed  of  all  of  those  assembled  here,  in  memory 
of — in  memory  of 


CHAPTER   L 

A  LUSH,    EGYPTIAN    LAND 

THE  next  morning,  after  purchasing  our  customary 
picture  cards,  we  were  about  to  achieve  an  early  start 
when  I  suddenly  remembered  that  I  had  not  tried  to  find 
the  one  man  I  really  wanted  to  see — a  man  for  whom  my 
father  had  worked  in  years  gone  by,  the  son  of  a  mill 
owner  who  after  his  father's  death  with  a  brother  had 
inherited  this  mill  and  employed  my  father  to  run  it. 
Although  he  was  very  much  younger  than  my  father  at 
that  time,  there  had  always  been  a  bond  of  sympathy 
and  understanding  between  them.  But  even  in  my  father's 
lifetime  the  woolen  industry  in  this  region  had  fallen  on 
hard  lines — the  East  and  some  patents  on  machinery  held 
by  Massachusetts  manufacturers  crowding  these  western 
ers  to  the  wall — so  that  this  boy  and  his  brother,  who  had 
been  such  good  friends  to  my  father,  had  been  compelled 
to  abandon  their  woolen  properties  entirely  and  Adam 
Shattuck  had  gone  into  the  electric  lighting  business,  and 
had  helped,  I  understand,  to  organize  the  local  electric 
light  plant  here  and  for  a  while  anyhow  was  its  first  vice- 
president  and  treasurer.  After  that  I  heard  nothing 
more. 

I  had  never  seen  him,  but  as  is  always  the  case  with 
someone  commercially  connected  with  a  family — a  suc 
cessful  and  so  helpful  a  personality — I  had  heard  a  great 
deal  about  him.  Indeed,  in  our  worst  days  here,  the 
Shattuck  family  had  represented  to  me  the  height  of  all 
that  was  important  and  durable,  and  to  such  an  extent 
that  even  now,  and  after  all  these  years,  I  hesitated 
whether  to  inflict  myself  on  him,  even  for  so  laudable  a 
purpose  as  inquiring  the  exact  site  of  the  old  mill  or 
whether  he  recalled  where  my  father  first  lived,  on  mov- 

409 


410  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

ing  to  Terre  Haute  from  Sullivan,  and  which  was  the 
house  where  I  was  born.  Nevertheless,  I  looked  him  up 
in  the  city  directory  and  could  find  only  one  Adam  B. 
Shattuck,  "hay,  grain,  and  feed,  230  South  Fourth 
Street,"  a  region  and  a  business  which  did  not  seem  likely 
to  contain  so  important  a  person.  Nevertheless,  because 
I  was  anxious  to  see  the  old  mill  which  my  father  had 
managed  under  his  ownership  (I  knew  it  stood  some 
where  down  near  the  river's  edge),  I  ventured  to  go  to 
this  address,  to  find  perchance  if  he  could  tell  me  where 
the  true  Adam  B.  Shattuck  was  to  be  found. 

And  on  the  way,  because  it  was  only  a  few  blocks  at 
most  in  any  direction,  I  decided  to  look  up  the  old  St. 
Joseph's  Church  and  school  which  I  had  attended  as  a 
child,  my  first  school,  to  see  if  possibly  I  could  recognize 
anything  in  connection  with  that.  A  picture  postcard 
which  I  had  found  showed  a  quite  imposing  church  on  the 
site  my  father  had  given,  but  no  school. 

Imagine  my  surprise  on  reaching  it  to  be  able  to  recog 
nize  in  a  rear  building  to  which  a  new  front  had,  in  years 
gone  by,  been  added,  the  exact  small,  square  red  brick 
building  in  which  I  had  first  been  drilled  in  my  A  B  C's. 
Owing  to  a  high  brick  wall  and  the  presence  of  an  en 
croaching  building  it  was  barely  visible  any  longer  from 
the  street,  but  stripped  of  these  later  accretions  I  could 
see  exactly  how  it  looked — and  remember  it !  As  I  gazed, 
the  yard,  the  pond,  the  old  church,  the  surrounding  neigh 
borhood,  all  came  back  to  me.  I  saw  it  quite  clearly.  As 
at  Warsaw,  Indiana,  I  now  suffered  a  slight  upheaval  in 
my  vitals.  A  kind  of  nostalgia  set  in.  The  very  earth 
seemed  slipping  out  from  under  my  feet.  I  looked 
through  the  small  paned  windows  into  one  of  the  old 
rooms  and  then,  because  it  was  exactly  the  same,  I  wanted 
to  get  away.  I  went  round  by  the  church  side  and  seeing 
a  funeral  train  in  front  walked  through  the  door  into  this 
newer  building.  Before  the  altar  rail,  surrounded  by  tall 
candles,  lay  a  coffin.  And  I  said  to  myself:  "Yes,  it  is 
symbolic.  Death  and  change  have  taken  much,  so  far. 
They  will  soon  take  all." 


A  LUSH,  EGYPTIAN  LAND  411, 

Then  I  climbed  back  into  the  car. 

It  was  only  a  few  blocks  to  the  hay,  grain  and  feed 
emporium  of  this  bogus  Adam  Shattuck,  and  when  I  saw 
it,  a  low,  drab,  one  story  brick  building,  in  a  very  dilapi 
dated  condition,  I  felt  more  convinced  than  ever  that  this 
man  could  have  nothing  to  do  with  my  father's  quondam 
employer.  I  went  through  the  dusty,  hay  strewn  door 
and  at  a  small,  tall,  dusty  and  worn  clerical  desk  saw  an 
old  man  in  a  threadbare  grey  alpaca  coat,  making  some 
entries  in  a  cheap,  reddish  paper  backed  cashbook.  There 
was  a  scale  behind  him.  The  shadowy,  windowless  walls 
in  the  rear  and  to  the  sides  were  lined  with  bins,  contain 
ing  sacks  of  oats  and  bran,  bales  of  hay  and  other  feed. 
Just  as  I  entered  a  boy  from  the  vicinity  followed  me, 
pushing  a  small  truck,  and  laid  a  yellow  slip  on  the  desk. 

"He  says  to  make  it  four  half  sacks  of  bran." 

"Can  you  tell  me  where  I  will  find  a  Mr.  Adam  B. 
Shattuck,  who  used  to  own  the  Wabash  Woolen  Mills 
here?"  I  inquired. 

"I'm  the  man — Adam  B.  Shattuck.  Just  excuse  me  a 
minute,  will  you,  while  I  wait  on  this  boy." 

I  stared  at  him  in  rude  astonishment,  for  he  seemed  so 
worn,  so  physically  concluded.  His  face  was  seamed  and 
sunken,  his  eyes  deep  tired,  his  hands  wrinkled. 

"You're  Mr.  Shattuck,  are  you?  Well,  I'm  the  son  of 
Paul  Dreiser,  who  used  to  work  for  you.  You  don't 
remember  me,  of  course — I  was  too  young " 

"This  isn't  by  any  chance  Theodore,  is  it?"  he  com 
mented,  his  eyes  brightening  slightly  with  recognition. 

"Yes,  that's  me,"  I  said. 

"Your  brother  Paul,"  he  said,  "when  he  was  out  here  a 
few  years  ago,  was  telling  me  about  you.  You  write,  I 
believe " 

"Yes." 

"Well,  of  course,  I've  never  known  of  you  except  in 
directly,  but — how  long  are  you  going  to  be  in  town?" 

"Only  this  morning,"  I  replied.  "I'm  just  passing 
through.  This  isn't  my  car.  I'm  traveling  in  it  with  a 
friend.  I'm  visiting  all  the  old  places  just  for  the  fun  of 


412  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

it.  I  was  just  coming  to  you  to  ask  if  you  could  tell  me 
where  the  old  mill  stood — whether  it's  still  standing." 

"Right  at  the  foot  of  the  street  here,"  he  commented 
very  cheerfully,  at  the  same  time  bustling  about  and  get 
ting  out  the  half  sacks  of  bran  and  other  things.  "It's 
just  as  it  was  in  your  father's  day,  only  it  is  a  wagon  com 
pany  now.  All  the  woolen  mills  in  this  section  died  out 
long  ago.  Your  father  foresaw  that.  He  told  me  they 
would.  I  went  into  the  electric  lighting  business  after 
ward,  but  they  crowded  me  out  of  it — consolidation  and 
all  that.  Then  I  got  into  this  business.  It  isn't  much 
but  it's  a  living.  One  seventyfive,"  he  said  to  the  boy, 
who  put  the  money  on  the  desk  and  went  out. 

"Yes,  indeed,  I  knew  your  father.  He  was  a  fine  man. 
He  worked  for  us  off  and  on  for  pretty  near  fifteen  year, 
after  his  own  mill  went  up.  This  was  no  country  for 
woolen  manufacture,  though.  We  couldn't  compete  with 
the  East.  Why,  I  read  here  not  long  ago  that  two  hun 
dred  mills  in  Indiana,  Ohio  and  Illinois  had  closed  up  in 
twenty  years — two  hundred !  Well,  that's  all  over.  So 
you're  Theodore !  You  couldn't  stay  and  have  lunch  with 
me,  could  you?'1 

"Thank  you,  I  couldn't  possibly,"  I  replied.  "I'm  only 
a  guest  in  this  car  and  I  can't  detain  them  too  long.  I 
did  want  to  see  you,  though,  and  so  I  came." 

"That's  right;  that's  right,"  he  said.  "It's  good  of 
you.  Times  have  changed  with  me  some,  but  then,  I've 
lived  a  long  time.  I've  a  son  in  New  York.  He's  with 
.  .  .  (he  mentioned  a  large  and  successful  company). 
You  ought  to  call  on  him  some  time.  He'd  be  glad  to 
see  you,  I'm  sure." 

He  rambled  on  about  one  thing  and  another  and  fol 
lowed  me  ...  to  the  door. 

"You  couldn't  tell  me,  by  any  chance,  where  the  first 
house  my  father  ever  occupied  in  Terre  Haute  stands?" 
I  said  idly. 

"Yes,  I  can.  It's  right  around  here  in  Second  Street, 
one  block  south,  next  to  a  grocery  store.  You  can't  miss 
it.  It's  a  two  story  brick  now,  but  they  added  a  story  a 


A  LUSH,  EGYPTIAN  LAND  413 

long  time  ago.  It  was  a  one  story  house  in  his  time,  but 
then  it  had  a  big  yard  and  lots  of  trees.  I  remember  it 
well.  I  used  to  go  there  occasionally  to  see  him.  .  .  . 
Right  down  there  at  the  foot  of  the  street,"  he  called 
after  me. 

I  climbed  into  the  car  and  down  we  went  to  the  old 
mill  to  stare  at  that,  now  whirring  with  new  sounds  and 
looking  fairly  brisk  and  prosperous;  then  back  to  the  old 
brick  house,  looking  so  old  and  so  commonplace  that  I 
could  well  imagine  it  a  fine  refuge  after  a  storm.  But  I 
had  never  even  heard  of  this  before  and  was  not  expect 
ing  to  find  it.  Then  we  raced  forth  Sullivan-ward  and  I 
was  heartily  glad  to  be  gone. 

The  territory  into  which  we  were  now  passing  was  that 
described  in  the  first  chapter  of  this  book — of  all  places 
that  I  ever  lived  in  my  youth  the  most  pleasing  to  me  and 
full  of  the  most  colorful  and  poetic  of  memories.  Infancy 
and  its  complete  non-understanding  had  just  gone.  For 
me,  when  we  arrived  here,  adolescence — the  inquisitive 
boy  of  twelve  to  sixteen — had  not  yet  arrived.  This  was 
the  region  of  the  wonder  period  of  youth,  when  trees, 
clouds,  the  sky,  the  progression  of  the  days,  the  sun,  the 
rains,  the  grass  all  filled  me  with  delight,  an  overpower 
ing  sense  of  beauty,  charm,  mystery.  How  eager  I  was 
to  know,  at  times — and  yet  at  other  times  not.  How  I 
loved  to  sit  and  gaze  just  drinking  it  all  in,  the  sensory 
feel  and  glory  of  it.  And  then  I  had  gone  on  to  other 
ideas  and  other  places  and  this  had  never  come  back — 
not  once  in  any  least  way — and  now  I  was  to  see  it  all 
again,  or  the  region  of  it 

Sullivan,  as  we  found  on  consulting  our  map,  lay  only 
twentyfive  miles  south,  or  thereabouts.  Our  road  lay 
through  a  perfectly  flat  region,  so  flat  and  featureless  that 
it  should  have  been  uninteresting  and  yet  it  was  not.  I 
have  observed  this  of  regions  as  of  people,  that  however 
much  alike  they  may  appear  to  be  in  character  there  is, 
nevertheless,  a  vast  difference  in  their  charm  or  lack  of  it. 
This  section  in  which  I  had  been  partially  reared  had 


4i4  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

charm — not  the  charm  of  personal  predisposition,  as  oth 
ers  will  testify,  but  real  charm.  The  soil  was  rich — a 
sandy  loam.  The  trees  were  shapely  and  healthy — peace 
ful  trees,  not  beaten  by  angry  winds  and  rains.  The  fields 
were  lush  with  grass  or  grain — warm  bottom  lands  these, 
composed  of  soil  carried  down  by  ancient  rivers — now,  in 
the  last  hundred  years  or  so,  given  names.  As  we  came 
out  of  Terre  Haute  I  turned  and  looked  back  at  it,  a 
prosperous,  vigorous  town.  East  of  it,  in  a  healthy, 
fruitful  region,  in  that  hill  country  around  Reelsville  and 
Brazil,  there  had  been  coal  mines — soft  coal  mines,  pro 
viding  work  and  fuel.  Here  on  our  route  to  Sullivan 
were  other  mines,  at  Farmersburg,  seven  miles  out,  a 
town  by  the  way  which  I  recalled  as  being  somehow  an 
outpost  of  the  priest  who  read  mass  at  Sullivan,  at  Shel- 
burne  and  other  places  still  farther  south.  You  could  see 
the  black,  dirty  breakers  across  flat  green  fields  in  which 
stood  round  healthy  trees. 

As  we  went  south,  one  of  those  warm  sudden  rains 
sprang  up,  or  came  down — one  of  those  quick,  heavy  rains 
which  I  recognized  as  characteristic  of  the  region  of  my 
infancy.  We  saw  it  coming  in  the  distance,  a  thickening 
of  smoke  clouds  over  some  groves  in  the  west.  Then  a 
green  fog  seemed  to  settle  between  us  and  the  trees,  and 
I  knew  it  was  raining. 

"Here  it  comes,"  I  called.  "Had  we  better  get  the 
top  up?" 

Bert,  who  was  now  the  master  of  motion  and  a  radi 
cally  different  temperament  to  Speed,  paid  no  heed.  He 
was  very  taciturn  or  meditative  at  times,  but  equally  gay 
at  others,  and  much  more  self  sufficient  and  reliant,  if 
anything.  I  had  been  most  interested  by  the  quiet,  con 
trolling  way  in  which  he  had  gone  about  getting  himself 
housed  and  fed  at  night  and  at  other  times.  Porters  and 
garage  managers  gave  no  least  care  to  Bert.  He  man 
aged  them  and  suggested  ways  and  means  to  us  occasion 
ally.  Whenever  anything  happened  to  the  car  he  leisurely 
extracted  himself  with  the  aid  of  his  crutches  and  set  about 


A  LUSH,  EGYPTIAN  LAND  415 

adjusting  it  as  though  there  were  not  the  least  thing  de 
fective  about  him.  It  was  interesting,  almost  amusing. 

But  now,  as  I  say,  he  paid  no  heed  and  soon  a  few 
heavy  drops  fell,  great,  splattering  globules  that  left  inch 
size  wet  spots  on  our  clothing,  and  then  we  were  in  the 
storm.  It  gushed. 

"Now,  will  you  listen?"  I  observed  as  we  jumped  down. 
Franklin  and  I  bustled  about  the  task  of  getting  the  hood 
up.  Before  we  could  do  it,  though — almost  before  we 
could  get  our  raincoats  on — it  was  pouring — a  torrent. 
It  seemed  to  come  down  in  bucketfuls.  Then,  once  we 
had  the  hood  up  and  the  seats  dried  and  our  raincoats  on 
and  were  suffocating  of  heat,  the  storm  was  gone.  The 
sun  came  out,  the  road  looked  golden,  the  grass  was  heav 
enly.  In  the  distance  one  could  see  it  raining  elsewhere, 
far  across  the  fields. 

"Yes,"  I  observed  feelingly  and  tenderly,  "  'this  is  me 
own,  me  native  land;'  only  I  wish  it  wouldn't  make  its 
remembered  characteristics  quite  so  obvious.  I  can  be 
shown  that  it  is  just  as  it  used  to  be,  without  being  killed." 

The  land  smiled.  I'm  sure  it  did.  Aren't  there  such 
things  as  smiling  lands? 

And  a  little  farther  on,  without  any  suggestion  from 
me,  for  I  am  well  satisfied  that  he  would  never  be  so  in 
fluenced,  Franklin  was  commenting  on  the  luxurious  char 
acter  of  the  region.  The  houses  were  all  small  and  sim 
ple,  very  tasteless  little  cottages,  but  very  good  and  new 
and  seemingly  comfortable,  sheltering  no  doubt  the  sons 
and  daughters  of  people  who  had  been  here  when  I  was. 
Excellent  automobiles  were  speeding  along  the  roads, 
handsome  western  makes  of  cars — not  so  many  Fords. 
The  cattle  in  the  fields  looked  healthy,  fat.  Timothy  and 
corn  were  standing  waist  high.  It  was  hot,  as  it  should 
be  in  a  fat  riverland  like  this.  We  had  not  gone  far  be 
fore  we  had  to  get  out  to  examine  a  hay  baling  machine — 
the  first  hay  baler  (for  the  use  of  individual  farmers)  I 
had  ever  seen.  There  had  been  a  haypress  at  Sullivan, 
a  most  wonderful  thing  to  me  to  contemplate  in  my  day — 
a  horse  going  round  in  a  ring  and  so  lifting  and  dropping 


4i 6  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

a  great  weight  which  compressed  the  hay  in  a  box;  but 
this  was  different.  It  was  standing  out  in  an  open  field 
near  three  haystacks  and  was  driven  by  a  gasoline  motor, 
a  force  which  made  short  work  of  the  vast  quantities  of 
hay  piled  on  the  feeder.  Three  men  operated  it.  The 
horses  that  drew  it  stood  idle  to  one  side. 

"How  much  hay  can  you  bale  in  a  day?"  I  asked  of  one 
of  the  farmers. 

"Depends  on  the  number  working,"  he  replied.  "We 
three  men  can  do  up  a  couple  of  stacks  like  that."  He 
was  referring  to  two  goodly  mounds  of  sweet  brown  hay 
that  stood  to  the  left. 

"Do  you  call  it  hard  work?"  I  asked. 

"No,  not  very,"  he  answered.  "Pitching  hay  from  the 
stacks  down  onto  it  and  pulling  the  bales  away." 

"What  will  the  farmer  not  get  next?"  I  inquired  of 
Franklin.  "It  seems  that  nearly  all  the  heavy  labor  of 
the  old  days  is  gone." 

"It's  true,"  he  said.  "I  never  saw  a  machine  like  this 
before.  I've  heard  of  them.  All  that  they  need  now  is  a 
good,  cheap  traction  plow  and  farming  will  be  a  weak 
man's  job — like  golf — and  twice  as  healthy."  ' 

We  climbed  back. 

Scudding  along  under  green  trees  and  through  stretches 
of  meadow  and  under  a  hot,  almost  baking  sun,  we  came 
at  last  to  various  signs  reading:  "For  Fine  Dry  Goods 
Visit  Squibbs,  South  Side  Square,"  or  "If  You  Want  The 
Best  Hardware  In  Sullivan  Go  To  Beach  &  Gens." 

"Ha !  then  someone  of  the  Beach  family  has  gone  into 
the  hardware  business,"  I  commented. 

Presently  a  huge  sign  appeared  hanging  across  the 
road.  It  read: 

"Sullivan  Welcomes  You." 

"Imagine  'dirty  old  Sullivan'  venturing  to  welcome  any 
one!"  I  commented,  quoting  my  sister.  "If  she  could 
only  see  that!"  I  added. 

"There's  another  name  I  recognize,  anyhow,"  I  com- 


A  LUSH,  EGYPTIAN  LAND  417 

mented  to  Franklin,  as  another  sign  came  into  view. 
"Some  member  of  that  family  owned  the  clover  field  back 
of  our  house  in  my  time.  Good  luck  to  him,  if  it's  in  good 
condition." 

In  a  few  minutes  we  were  rolling  up  a  street  which 
would  have  taken  us  to  the  public  square  if  we  had  fol 
lowed  it;  instantly  I  was  on  the  qui  vive  to  see  what  if 
anything  I  could  remember.  This  was  a  section,  the  north 
west  corner  of  Sullivan,  which  I  recalled  as  having  been  a 
great  open  common  in  my  time,  filled  principally  with  dog 
fennel  and  dandelion  and  thistles  and  containing  only  one 
house,  a  red  one,  occupied  by  an  Irish  section  boss,  whose 
wife  (my  mother  having  befriended  her  years  before 
when  first  she  and  her  husband  came  to  Sullivan)  had 
now,  at  the  time  my  mother  was  compelled  to  make  this 
return  pilgrimage,  befriended  us  by  letting  us  stay — 
mother  and  us  three  youngsters — until  she  could  find  a 
house.  It  was  a  period  of  three  or  four  days,  as  I  re 
call  it.  The  father  of  this  family,  Thomas  Brogan,  was  a 
great,  heavy  handed,  hulking,  red  faced  Irishman  who 
knew  only  work  and  Catholicism.  On  Sunday  in  some 
weird,  stiff  combination  of  Sunday  clothes  and  squeaky 
shoes,  he  was  accustomed  to  lead  in  single  file  procession 
his  more  or  less  recalcitrant  family  through  weeds  and 
along  the  broken  board  walks  of  this  poorly  equipped 
region  to  mass.  I  saw  him  often,  even  in  my  day.  His 
youngest  son,  Harry  Brogan,  often  played  with  Ed  and 
me  and  once  he  instigated  some  other,  older  boys,  to  lick 
us — a  tale  too  long  and  too  sad  to  be  told  here.  His  sec 
ond  youngest  son,  Jim — alias  Red  Brogan  and  subse 
quently  known  to  fame  as  "Red  Oliphant,"  a  bank  robber 
(finally  electrocuted  by  the  state  of  New  York  at  Sing 
Sing  for  murder — he  and  three  or  four  others  shot  a  night 
watchman,  or  so  the  police  said) — was  often  beaten  by 
his  father  with  a  horsewhip  because  he  would  not  work 
in  the  local  coal  mine  or  perhaps  do  other  drudging  about 
his  home.  This  coal  mine,  by  the  way,  had  killed  his 
elder  brother  Frank  some  three  or  four  years  before  by 
explosion,  a  tragedy  which  you  might  have  thought  would 


4i 8  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

have  ended  coal  mining  in  that  family.  Not  at  all.  Far 
from  it.  These  beatings  had  continued  until  the  boy  ran 
away,  uneducated  of  course,  and  became  the  character  he 
subsequently  was  or  was  alleged  to  have  been.  I  do  not 
know.  If  you  want  to  know  of  a  fairly  good  boy  who  died 
a  criminal  in  the  chair  owing  to  conditions  over  which  he 
had  no  least  control  or  certainly  very  little,  this  was  one. 
If  I  were  Red  Brogan  and  were  summoned  before  the 
eternal  throne — would  that  there  were  one — I  would 
show  Him  the  stripes  on  my  back  and  my  neglected  brain 
and  ask  Him  why,  if  He  were  God,  He  had  forsaken  me. 
I  have  heard  my  mother  tell  how  she  was  present  at 
the  time  this  older  brother's  body  was  brought  up  out  of 
the  mine  (eight  men  were  killed  at  the  time)  and  how 
tragic  seemingly  was  the  grief  of  both  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Brogan.  Later  on,  after  we  left  Sullivan,  the  family  be 
came  somewhat  more  prosperous  and  it  is  likely  that  the 
youngest  son  was  not  compelled  to  work  as  the  others  had. 


CHAPTER    LI 

ANOTHER  "OLD  HOME" 

BE  that  as  it  may,  it  was  much  of  this  and  related  mat 
ters  that  I  was  ruminating  as  I  came  through  this  region. 
But  I  could  find  no  traces  of  what  had  formerly  been. 
There  was  no  red  house  anywhere — repainted  probably. 
The  coal  mine,  which  I  had  remembered  as  being  visible 
from  this  section,  was  not  to  be  seen.  Later  I  learned 
that  it  had  been  worked  out  and  abandoned.  The  coal 
had  all  been  dug  out.  Many  new  small  houses  in  orderly, 
compact  rows  now  made  streets  here.  We  had  Bert  fol 
low  this  road  a  few  blocks  and  then  turn  discreetly  to  the 
east  until  we  should  cross  the  railroad  tracks,  for  I  re 
called  that  it  was  across  these  tracks  or  track  facing 
another  weed-grown  square,  and  what  was  then  a  mildly 
industrious  institution  of  the  town,  the  hay  press,  that 
our  house  stood. 

This  square  had  always  seemed  a  fascinating  thing  to 
me,  for  despite  the  fact  that  it  was  on  the  extreme  out 
skirts  of  the  town  and  in  a  district  where  (a  little  farther 
out)  stood  the  village  slaughterhouse,  emitting  uncom 
fortable  odors  when  the  wind  was  blowing  right,  still  it 
was  near  the  town's  one  railroad  station  and  switching 
yards — there  was  a  turntable  near  the  hay  press — and  we 
could  see  the  trains  go  by  and  watch  the  principal  industry 
of  the  place,  switching,  the  taking  on  or  dropping  off  of 
cars.  Every  morning  at  ten-thirty  and  every  afternoon 
at  two  there  was  a  freight  train — the  one  in  the  morning 
from  the  south,  the  other  in  the  afternoon  from  the  north 
— which  stopped  and  switched  here.  As  an  eight  to  ten- 
year-old  boy  how  often  I  have  sat  on  our  porch,  playing 
"engine"  or  "freight"  with  empty  cigar  boxes  for  cars 
(an  extra  big  one  for  a  caboose)  and  a  spool  for  a  smoke- 

419 


420  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

stack,  and  imitated  the  switching  and  "making  up"  which 
I  saw  going  on  across  the  common.  A  delicious  sense  of 
wonder  and  delight  always  lingered  in  my  mind  in  con 
nection  with  Sullivan,  for  although  we  were  apparently 
desperately  poor  there  were  compensations  which  the  in 
scrutable  treasure  of  youth  trebled  and  quadrupled — nay 
multiplied  an  hundred  and  a  thousand  fold. 

This  indeed,  I  said  to  myself,  as  I  looked  at  it  now 
trying  eagerly  to  get  it  all  back  and  failing  so  dismally 
in  the  main,  was  that  Egyptian  land  of  which  I  have 
spoken.  Here  were  those  blue  skies,  those  warm  rains. 
Back  of  this  house  which  I  am  now  to  see  once  more 
perhaps  will  be  that  perfect  field  of  clover — only  re 
membered  in  the  summer  state,  so  naturally  optimistic 
is  the  human  soul.  In  the  sky  will  be  soaring  buzzards, 
surely.  Over  a  field  of  green  will  stand  a  tall,  gnarled 
dead  tree  trunk,  its  gauntness  concealed  by  a  cape  of  wild 
ivy.  On  its  topmost  level  will  sit  a  brown  hawk  or  a 
grey  headed  eagle  calculating  on  methods  of  capture. 
Across  the  street,  up  the  road  a  little  way,  will  be  the 
brown  home  of  "crazy  old  Bowles,"  who  used  to  come  to 
our  well  for  water  singing  and  sometimes  executing  a 
weird  step,  or  gazing  vacantly  and  insanely  at  the  sky. 
He  was  an  ex-army  man,  shot  in  the  head  at  Lookout 
Mountain  and  now  a  little  daffy.  He  had  been  pensioned 
and  was  spending  his  declining  years  here.  "Crazy  old 
Bowles"  was  his  local  name. 

A  few  steps  farther  out  this  same  road,  the  last  house 
but  one  (which  was  ours)  would  be  the  house  of  Mrs. 
Hudson,  a  lonely  and  somewhat  demented  old  widow 
whose  children  had  long  since  gone  and  left  her  to  live 
here  quite  alone.  We  children  thought  her  a  witch. 
Down  in  a  hollow,  beyond  our  house,  where  lay  the  whit 
ening  skulls  and  bones  of  many  an  ox  and  cow,  stood  the 
tumbledown  slaughterhouse,  to  me  a  fearsome  place.  I 
always  imagined  dead  cows  prowling  about  at  night. 
Over  the  way  from  our  house  had  been  a  great  elm,  in 
which  Ed  and  I  used  to  climb  to  swing  on  its  branches. 
In  its  shade,  in  summer  time,  Tillie,  Ed  and  I  played 


ANOTHER  "OLD  HOME"  421 

house.  I  can  hear  the  wind  in  the  leaves  yet.  Beyond 
the  slaughterhouse  eastward  was  a  great  cornfield.  In 
autumn,  when  the  frost  was  whitening  the  trees,  I  have 
seen  thousands  of  crows  on  their  way  southward  resting 
on  the  rail  fences  which  surrounded  this  field,  and  on  the 
slaughterhouse  roof  and  on  a  few  lone  trees  here  and 
there,  holding  a  conference.  Such  a  cawing  and  chat 
tering! 

Beyond  the  clover  field  again,  in  a  southeasterly  direc 
tion,  was  the  fine  farm  of  Mr.  Beach,  his  white  house, 
his  red  barn,  his  trees  sheltering  peacocks  that  in  summer 
"called  for  rain."  In  the  fields  all  about  were  blackber 
ries,  raspberries,  dewberries,  wild  plums,  wild  crabapple 
trees — a  host  of  things  which  we  could  gather  free.  If 
either  Ed  or  I  had  had  the  least  turn  of  ingenuity  we 
might  have  trapped  or  shot  enough  wild  animals  to  have 
kept  us  in  meat — possibly  even  in  funds,  so  numerous 
were  various  forms  of  small  game.  In  summer  we  could 
have  picked  unlimited  quantities  of  berries  and  helped 
mother  preserve  them  against  dark  days.  We  did — some. 
But  in  the  main  all  we  did  was  to  fish  a  little — as  the 
thought  of  pleasure  moved  us. 

But  oh,  this  pleasing  realm !  Once  here  I  could  not  see 
it  as  it  really  was  at  the  moment,  nor  can  I  now  write  of 
it  intelligently  or  dispassionately.  It  is  all  too  involved 
with  things  which  have  no  habitat  in  land  or  sea  or  sky. 
The  light  of  early  morning,  the  feet  of  youth,  dreams, 

dreams,  dreams Yes,  here  once,  I  told  myself  now, 

we  carried  coal  in  winter,  Ed  and  Al  and  I,  but  what 
matter?  Was  not  youth  then  ours  to  comfort  us?  My 
father  was  gloomy,  depressed,  in  no  position  or  mood  to 
put  right  his  disordered  affairs.  But  even  so,  oh  Sullivan! 
Sullivan!  of  what  wonders  and  dreams  are  not  your 
poorest  and  most  commonplace  aspects  compounded! 

As  we  crossed  the  tracks  by  the  railroad  station,  only 
two  long  blocks  from  "our  house"  in  the  old  days,  I  be 
gan  to  recognize  familiar  landmarks.  At  the  first  corner 
beyond  the  station  where  I  always  turned  north  had  been 
four  young  trees  and  here  now  were  four  quite  large  ones. 


422  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

I  was  convinced  they  were  the  same.  Looking  up  the 
street  north  I  recognized  the  open  common  still  intact, 
and  as  we  neared  the  house  the  identical  hay  press,  if  you 
please,  newly  covered  with  tin  and  perhaps  otherwise 
repaired,  but  standing  close  to  the  tracks,  where  formerly 
the  hay  was  loaded  onto  cars.  By  the  sounds  issuing 
from  it,  it  must  have  been  busy  indeed.  At  the  spot  where 
we  now  were  at  the  moment  should  have  been  Bowies' 
house,  a  low,  one  story  yellow  affair,  but  now  only  a  patch 
of  weeds  and  a  broken  well  top  indicated  that  a  house 
had  once  stood  there.  Looking  quickly  for  "our  house" 
I  distinguished  it,  one  of  a  row  of  seemingly  new  and 
much  poorer  ones,  but  this  older  house  was  still  the  best 
of  them  all.  Beyond,  where  Mrs.  Hudson's  house  should 
have  been  and  the  great  elm,  and  the  Poe-like  slaughter 
house,  was  nothing  but  a  railroad  track  curving  Y-fashion 
and  joining  another  which  ran  where  once  the  slaughter 
house  hollow  had  been.  There  was  no  hollow  any  more, 
no  tree,  no  nothing.  Only  a  right-angled  railroad  track 
or  switching  Y. 

My  field  of  clover! 

It  was  an  unkempt  weed  patch,  small,  disreputable, 
disillusionizing — a  thing  that  had  never  been  large  at  all 
or  had  shrunk  to  insignificant  proportions.  My  tree — the 
column  of  the  brooding  hawk — it  was  gone.  There  was 
no  fine  fecund  truck  patch  alongside  our  house,  where 
once  we  had  raised  corn,  potatoes,  peas,  onions,  beans — 
almost  our  total  summer  and  winter  fare.  Three  other 
small  shabby  houses  and  their  grounds  occupied  the  field 
we  had  cultivated.  I  realized  now  in  looking  at  this  what 
an  earnest,  industrious  woman  my  mother  must  have  been. 

A  band  of  ragamuffin  children  were  playing  out  in 
front,  children  with  bare  legs,  bare  arms,  in  most  cases 
half  bare  bodies,  and  so  dirty !  When  they  saw  our  car 
they  gathered  in  a  group  and  surveyed  us.  One  of  the 
littlest  of  them  had  a  sore-eyed  puppy  elevated  to  his 
loving  breast.  It  was  a  "poor  white  trash"  neighborhood. 

"My  brother's  got  tabuckalosis  of  the  bones,"  one  little 
girl  said  to  me,  nodding  at  a  skimpy,  distrait  looking 


MY    FATHER'S     MILL 
Sullivan,  Indiana 


ANOTHER  "OLD  HOME"  423 

youth  who  stood  to  one  side,  rather  pleased  than  not  that 
his  ailment  should  attract  so  much  attention. 

"Oh,  no,"  I  said,  "surely  not.  He  doesn't  look  as 
though  he  had  anything  but  a  good  appetite,  does  he, 
Franklin?" 

"Certainly  not,"  replied  the  latter  cheerfully. 

The  youth  gazed  at  me  solemnly. 

"Oh,  yes,  he  has,"  continued  his  sister,  "the  doctor 
said  so." 

"But  don't  you  know  that  doctors  don't  know  every 
thing?"  put  in  Franklin.  "Doctors  just  imagine  things, 
the  same  as  other  people.  Why,  look  at  him — he's  nice 
and  healthy." 

"No,  he  ain't  either,"  replied  this  protector  argumen- 
tatively.  "If  he  don't  get  better  he'll  haff  to  go  to  the 
'ospital.  Our  doctor  says  so.  My  mother  ain't  got  the 
money  or  he'd  go  now." 

"Dear!  Dear!"  I  exclaimed,  looking  at  the  youth 
sympathetically.  "But  there,  he  looks  so  well.  You  feel 
all  right,  don't  you?"  I  asked  of  the  contemplative  vic 
tim,  who  was  staring  at  me  with  big  eyes. 

"Yes,  sir." 

"You're  never  sick  in  bed?" 

"No,  sir." 

"Well,  now  here's  a  nickel.  And  don't  you  get  sick. 
You'll  be  well  so  long  as  you  think  so." 

"Ooh,  let's  see  it,"  commanded  the  advertising  sister, 
drawing  near  and  trying  to  take  the  hand  with  the  coin. 

"No." 

"Well,  let's  see  how  it  looks." 

"No." 

"Well,  then,  keep  it,  smarty!  You'll  have  to  give  it  to 
maw,  anyhow." 

I  began  to  wonder  whether  "tabuckalosis"  of  the  bones 
was  not  something  developed  for  trade  purposes  or 
whether  it  was  really  true. 

The  house  was  in  exactly  the  same  position  and  phys 
ically  unchanged  save  that  in  our  day  the  paint  was  new 
and  white;  whereas,  now,  it  was  drab  and  dirty.  The 


424  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

yard,  or  garden  as  the  English  would  call  it,  had  all  been 
cut  away,  or  nearly  so,  leaving  only  a  dusty  strip  of  faded 
grass  to  the  right  as  one  looked  in.  In  "our"  time  there 
was  a  neat  white  picket  fence  and  gate  in  front.  It  was 
gone  now.  Inside,  once,  were  roses  in  profusion,  planted 
by  mother,  and  a  few  small  fruit  trees — a  peach,  a  cherry, 
an  apple  tree.  Now  there  were  none.  The  fence  on 
which  I  used  to  sit  of  a  morning — the  adored  back  fence 
— and  watch  the  swallows  skimming  over  the  clover  and 
the  yellow  humble  bees  among  the  blooms  was  gone  also. 
Not  a  trace  of  all  the  beauty  that  once  was  mine.  I  stood 
here  and  thought  of  the  smooth  green  grass  that  I  had 
rejoiced  in,  the  morning  and  evening  skies,  the  cloud  for 
mations,  the  bluebird  that  built  a  nest  under  one  corner 
of  our  roof,  the  swallows  that  built  their  hard  bony  nests 
in  our  chimneys  and  lost  them  occasionally — they  and 
their  poor  naked  young  tumbling  to  ruin  on  our  cool 
hearthstones.  Had  it  been  in  fact  or  only  in  my  own 
soul? 

I  thought  of  my  mother  walking  about  in  the  cool  of 
the  morning  and  the  evening,  rejoicing  in  nature.  I  saw 
her  with  us  on  the  back  porch  or  the  front — Tillie,  Ed, 
myself,  and  some  of  our  elders  gathered  about  her — 
listening  to  stories  or  basking  in  the  unbelievable  comfort 
of  her  presence. 

Here,  at  dusk,  I  said,  Ed  and  I  used  to  throw  cinders 
and  small  rocks  at  the  encircling  bats,  hoping,  as  Ed  used 
to  say,  to  "paralyze"  them.  From  our  doorstep  at  night 
we  could  hear  the  whistle  of  incoming  and  outgoing  trains 
and  see  the  lighted  coaches  as  they  passed.  An  old  grist 
mill  a  half  mile  "down  the  track,"  as  we  always  referred 
ito  the  region  due  south,  ground  grain  all  night  and  we 
icould  hear  the  poetic  rumble  of  the  stones.  Here,  oc 
casionally,  my  brooding  father  would  come  from  Terre 
Hfeute,  to  sit  with  us  and  bring  a  little  money — the  money 
that  he  could  spare  from  past  accumulated  debts. 

My  brother  Rome  came  here  once — "to  get  drunk  and 
disgrace  us,"  as  my  sister  said.  My  elder  sisters  came,  to 
avoid  their  father  and  have  the  consoling  counsel  and  love 


ANOTHER  "OLD  HOME'7  425 

of  their  mother.  My  brother  Al  came  from  my  Uncle 
Martin's  fruit  farm  at  North  Manchester,  if  you  please, 
to  lord  it  over  us  with  his  rustic  strength,  to  defeat  and 
terrorize  all  our  accumulated  enemies  (Ed  and  I  had  a 
genius  for  storing  up  enemies  for  him)  and  to  elicit  our 
contempt  for  his  country  bumpkin  manners.  And  here 
finally  when  my  mother  was  distrait  as  to  means  of  weath 
ering  the  persistent  storm  and  we  were  actually  cold  and 
hungry,  my  brother  Paul,  now  a  successful  minstrel  man 
and  the  author  of  "The  Paul  Dresser  Comic  Songster" 
(containing  all  the  songs  sung  in  the  show)  and  now  trav 
eling  in  this  region,  came  to  her  aid  and  removed  us  all 
to  Evansville — the  spring  following  this  worst  of  winters. 

In  addition  to  all  this  my  father's  first  mill  was  still 
here  at  that  time — and  even  now  as  I  later  discovered — 
only  two  blocks  away,  behind  the  station — burned  once 
but  restored  afterward — and  also  an  old  house  which  he 
had  built  and  owned  but  had  been  compelled  to  sell.  In 
those  days  these  were  the  signs  and  emblems  of  our  for 
mer  greatness,  which  kept  our  drooping  spirits  from  sink 
ing  too  low  and  made  us  decide  not  to  be  put  upon  forever 
and  ever  by  life. 

As  I  stood  looking  at  this  I  had  once  more  that  sinking 
sensation  I  experienced  in  Warsaw  and  Terre  Haute. 
Life  moves  so  insensibly  out  from  under  you.  It  slips 
away  like  a  slow  moving  tide.  You  look  and  the  box  or 
straw  that  once  was  at  your  doorstep  is  far  down  stream 
— or  rather  you  are  the  box,  the  straw.  Your  native 
castle  is  miles  removed.  I  went  in  and  knocked  at  the 
door  while  Franklin,  without,  sketched  and  photographed 
to  suit  himself.  A  slattern  of  a  woman,  small,  young, 
stodgy,  greasy,  but  not  exactly  unattractive,  came  to  the 
door  and  stared  at  me  in  no  particularly  friendly  way. 
Why  are  some  animals  so  almost  unconsciously  savage? 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  I  said.  "I  lived  here  once,  years 
ago.  Would  you  let  me  come  in  and  look  over  the 
house?" 

As  I  spoke  a  tall,  gaunt  yokel  of  not  over  twentysix 
ambled  out  from  an  inner  room.  He  was  an  attractive 


426  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

specimen  physically  but  so  crude  and  ignorant.  He 
looked  me  over  superficially.  I  might  have  been  a  police 
man  or  an  enemy. 

I  repeated  my  question. 

"Yes,  I  guess  you  kin  look  it  over,"  he  said  distantly. 
"It  ain't  quite  made  up  yet.  The  boarders  don't  keep 
their  rooms  just  as  spick  as  might  be." 

Boarders!  In  this  unkempt  house!  It  was  a  litter. 
The  best  pictures  were  flyspecked  lithographs  or  chro- 
mos.  The  floors  when  they  were  laid  with  anything  were 
covered  with  earthy  looking  rag  carpets — creaky,  yellow, 
nondescript  furniture.  A  litter  and  crush  of  useless  things 
— tin  and  glass  lamps,  papers,  cheap  pamphlets — a  red 
tablecloth  or  two — and  there  were  flies  and  odors  and 
unmade  beds. 

I  went  through,  looking  into  each  room,  restoring  it  to 
my  mind  as  it  had  been.  We  had  not  had  much — the 
rooms  in  our  day  were  sparely  and  poorly  furnished,  taste 
lessly  so  no  doubt — but  there  is  an  art  in  spareness  and 
bareness  and  cleanliness,  and  still  more  in  a  pervasive  per 
sonality  like  my  mother's.  What  we  had,  thanks  to  her, 
was  clean  and  neat,  with  flowers  permitted  to  approach 
as  near  as  summer  and  soil  and  pots  made  possible.  I 
realized  now  that  it  was  her  temperament  which  like  a 
benediction  or  a  perfume  had  pervaded,  surrounded,  suf 
fused  this  whole  region  and  this  home  for  me.  It  was 
my  mother  and  myself  and  my  brothers  and  sisters  in 
part  whom  I  was  remembering — not  just  the  house  and 
the  grounds. 

Aside  from  this  house  there  was  not  much  that  I 
wanted  to  see — not  much  with  which  I  was  intimately 
identified.  A  Catholic  church  to  which  a  priest  came  once 
a  month  and  in  which  the  Catholic  school  was  held — an 
institution  which,  fortunately,  I  was  not  permitted  to  at 
tend  very  long,  for  want  of  shoes  to  wear;  the  old  mill 
which  my  father  built  and  which  after  a  fire  was  restored, 
and  in  the  mill  pond  of  which  Ed  and  I  were  wont  to  fish, 
on  occasion;  the  courthouse  square  and  postoffice,  in  the 
latter  of  which  I  have  often  waited  eagerly  for  the  dis- 


ANOTHER  "OLD  HOME"  427 

tribution  of  mail — not  that  it  meant  anything  to  me  per 
sonally,  but  because  my  mother  was  so  pathetically  eager 
for  word  of  some  kind;  the  Busseron  river  or  creek, 
which  I  knew  we  would  see  as  we  left  town.  We  left  this 
group  of  chattering  children,  one  of  whom,  a  girl,  wanted 
to  sell  us  the  small  dog  in  order,  as  she  said,  to  buy  her 
self  a  new  riding  whip.  I  could  not  decide  whether  she 
was  indulging  in  a  flight  of  fancy — so  poverty  stricken 
was  her  home — or  whether  on  some  farm  near  by  was  a 
horse  she  was  actually  permitted  to  ride.  She  was  brisk 
and  stodgy — a  black  eyed,  garrulous  little  creature  with 
a  fondness  for  great  words,  but  no  real  charm. 

With  one  backward  glance  on  my  part  we  were  off  to 
the  mill,  which  stood  just  as  it  was  in  my  day,  only  instead 
of  running  full  time  as  it  did  then  there  was  an  assignee's 
sign  on  the  door  saying  that  all  the  stock  and  fixtures  of 
the  Sullivan  Woolen  Mills  Company  would  be  sold  under 
the  hammer  at  a  given  date  to  satisfy  certain  judgments — - 
a  proof  I  thought  of  Mr.  Shattuck's  assertions.  The 
small  white  Catholic  Church,  still  at  hand,  was  no  longer 
a  Catholic  Church  but  a  hall,  the  Catholics  having  moved 
to  a  more  imposing  edifice.  The  county  courthouse 
was  entirely  new,  a  thing  in  the  usual  fashion  and  scarcely 
so  attractive  as  the  old.  The  little  old  postoffice  in  its 
brown  shell  was  replaced  by  a  brick  and  glass  structure, 
owned  no  doubt  by  the  government.  There  was  a  Car 
negie  Library  of  sorts — what  town  has  been  skipped?  A 
new  central  public  school,  various  new  churches,  Baptist, 
Methodist,  Presbyterian,  showing  where  a  part  of  the 
savings  of  the  American  people  are  being  put.  We 
stopped  for  lunch  and  picture  postcards — and  found  only 
sleepy,  lackadaisical  merchants  and  clerks,  a  type  of  in 
dolence  befitting  a  hot,  inter-river  region.  For  to  the 
east  of  this  town  about  twenty  miles  was  the  White  river 
(which  we  crossed  at  Indianapolis) ,  and  to  the  west  about 
ten  miles  the  Wabash,  and  all  between  was  low,  alluvial 
soil — a  wonderful  region  for  abundant  crops — a  region 
frequently  overflowed  in  the  springtime  by  the  down  rush 
ing  floods  of  the  north. 


CHAPTER   LII 

HAIL,  INDIANA! 

GOING  out  of  Sullivan  I  made  an  observation,  based 
on  the  sight  of  many  men  and  women,  sitting  on  doorsteps 
or  by  open  windows  or  riding  by  in  buggies  or  automo 
biles,  or  standing  in  yards  or  fields — that  a  lush,  fecund 
land  of  this  kind  produces  a  lush,  fecund  population — 
and  I  think  this  was  well  demonstrated  here.  There  was 
a  certain  plumpness  about  many  people  that  I  saw — men 
and  women — a  ruddy  roundness  of  flesh  and  body,  which 
indicated  as  much.  I  saw  mothers  on  doorsteps  or  lawns 
with  kicking,  crowing  children  in  their  arms  or  young 
sters  playing  about  them,  who  illustrated  the  point  ex 
actly.  The  farmers  that  I  saw  were  all  robust,  chunky 
men.  The  women — farm  girls  and  town  wives — had  al 
most  a  Dutch  stolidity.  I  gazed,  hardly  willing  to  be 
lieve,  and  yet  convinced.  It  was  the  richness  of  this  soil 
— black,  sandy  muck — of  which  these  people  partook. 
It  made  me  think  that  governments  ought  to  take  starv 
ing  populations  off  unfertile  soils  and  put  them  on  land 
like  this. 

Going  south  from  here  Franklin  and  I  fell  into  a  very 
curious  and  intricate  discussion.  The  subtlety  of  some 
people's  private  speculations  at  times  astonishes  me.  Not 
that  our  conversation  was  at  all  extraordinary  from  any 
point  of  view,  but  it  was  so  peculiar  in  spots.  I  am  not 
wildly  intoxicated  by  the  spirit  of  my  native  state,  not 
utterly  so  at  any  rate;  yet  I  must  admit  that  there  is  some 
thing  curiously  different  about  it — delicate,  poetic,  gener 
ative — I  hardly  know  what  I  want  to  say.  On  the  way 
there  I  had  been  saying  to  Franklin  that  I  doubted  whether 
I  should  find  the  West  still  the  same  or  whether  it  was  as 
generative  and  significant  as  I  had  half  come  to  make 

428 


HAIL,  INDIANA!  429 

myself  believe  it  was.  After  leaving  Warsaw  I  had  re 
marked  that  either  I  or  the  town  had  changed  greatly, 
and  since  the  town  looked  the  same,  it  must  be  me.  To 
this  he  assented  and  now  added: 

"You  should  go  sometime  to  a  Speedway  race  at  In 
dianapolis,  as  I  have  often,  year  after  year  since  it  was 
first  built.  There,  just  when  the  first  real  summer  days 
begin  to  take  on  that  wonderful  light,  and  a  kind  of  lumi 
nous  silence  over  things  suggests  growing  corn  and  ripen 
ing  wheat  and  quails  whistling  in  the  meadows  over  by 
the  woods,  you  will  find  an  assemblage  of  people  from 
all  over  this  country  and  from  other  countries — cars  by 
the  thousands  with  foreign  licenses;  which  make  you  feel 
that  this  is  the  center  of  things.  I've  been  there,  and  get 
ting  a  bit  tired  of  watching  the  cars  have  gone  over  into 
the  woods  inside  the  grounds  and  lain  down  on  the  grass 
on  my  back.  There  would  be  the  same  familiar  things 
about  me,  the  sugar  and  hickory  trees,  the  little  cool 
breeze  that  comes  up  in  the  middle  of  the  day,  through 
the  foliage,  the  same  fine  sky  that  I  used  to  look  up  into 
when  a  boy;  but,  circling  around  me  continuously  for 
hours,  coming  up  from  the  south  and  along  the  great 
stretches,  and  from  the  north  bank  of  the  track,  were 
the  weird  roar  and  thunder  of  an  international  conflict. 
Then  I  would  get  up  and  look  away  south  along  the 
grandstands  and  see  flying  in  the  Indiana  sunlight  the 
flags  of  all  the  great  nations,  Italy  and  England,  France 
and  Belgium,  Holland  and  Germany.  So  I  sometimes 
think  the  spirit  that  has  been  instrumental  in  distinguish 
ing  this  particular  section  from  other  sections  of  the  coun 
try  is  something  still  effective ;  that  it  does  not  always  lead, 
away  from  itself;  that  it  has  established  its  freedom  from  I 
isolation  and  mere  locality  and  accomplished  here  a  quite  j 
vital  contact  with  universal  thought." 

"That's  all  very  flattering  to  Indiana,"  I  said,  "but  do 
you  really  believe  that?" 

"Indeed  I  do,"  he  replied.  "This  is  a  most  peculiar 
state.  Almost  invariably,  on  socalled  clear  days  in  July 
and  August  out  here,  an  indescribable  haze  over  every- 


430  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

thing  leaves  the  horizons  unaccounted  for  and  the  dis 
tance  a  sort  of  mystery.  This,  it  has  always  seemed  to 
me,  is  bound  to  produce  in  certain  types  of  mind  a  kind  of 
unrest.  In  such  light,  buzzards  hanging  high  above  you 
or  crows  flying  over  the  woods  are  no  longer  merely  the 
things  that  they  are  but  become  the  symbols  of  a  spiritual, 
if  I  may  use  the  word,  or  aesthetic,  suggestiveness  that  is 
unescapable.  The  forests  here  also,  or  such  as  used  to  be 
here,  must  have  had  their  influence.  Temples  and  ca 
thedrals,  all  works  of  art,  are  designed  to  impress  men's 
minds,  leading  them  into  varying  conditions  of  conscious 
ness.  The  forests  of  sugar  and  beech  and  poplar  and 
oak  and  hickory  about  here  originally,  it  has  been  said, 
were  the  most  wonderful  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  No 
one  had  ever  experimented  with  the  action  of  such  things 
as  these  on  people's  minds,  to  determine  specific  results, 
but  I  fancy  they  have  them.  In  fact  I  sometimes  think 
there  is  something  about  soil  and  light,  a  magnetism  or 
creative  power  like  the  electric  generative  field  of  a  dy 
namo,  which  produces  strange,  new,  interesting  things. 
How  else  can  you  explain  the  fact  that  'Ben  Hur'  was 
written  out  here  at  Crawfordville,  under  a  beech  tree,  or 
why  the  first  automobile  course,  after  Brooklands,  Eng 
land,  was  built  here  at  Indianapolis,  or  why  La  Salle,  with 
a  company  of  adventurers,  should  come  canoeing  down 
the  St.  Joseph  and  the  Maumee  into  this  region?  I  be- 
li£ve__thorojogh^  of  a  great  resource  of 

relative  truth,  constituted  of  the  facts  of  all  human 
things7_that  this  resource  is  available  to  anyone  whoever 
or  wherever  he  may  be,  who  can,  in  his  mind,  achieve  a 
clear  understanding  of  his  own  freedom  from  the  neces 
sities  of  mere  physical  communication.  This  may  seem 
to  be  getting  a  little  thin  but  it  is  not  beside  the  actual 
point  if  you  trouble  to  think  of  it." 

"That's  rather  flattering  to  dear  old  Indiana,"  I  re 
peated,  "but  still  I'm  not  sure  that  I'm  absolutely  con 
vinced.  You  make  out  a  fairly  plausible  case." 

"Look  at  the  tin  plate  trust,"  he  continued,  "one  of 
the  first  and  most  successful.  It  originated  in  Kokomo 


HAIL,  INDIANA!  431 

and  expanded  until  it  controlled  the  Rock  Island  Railway, 
Diamond  Match,  and  other  corporations.  Look  at  the 
first  American  automobile — it  came  from  here — and 
James  Whitcomb  Riley  and  George  Ade  and  Tarkington, 
and  other  things  like  that." 

"Yes,  'and  other  things  like  that,1  "  I  quoted.  "You're 
right." 

I  did  not  manage  to  break  in  on  his  dream,  however. 

"Take  this  man  Haynes,  for  instance,  and  his  car. 
Here  is  a  case  where  the  soil  or  the  light  or  the  general 
texture  of  the  country  generated  a  sense  of  freedom,  right 
here  in  Indiana  in  a  single  mind,  and  to  a  great  result; 
but  instead  of  his  going  away  or  its  taking  that  direction, 
Haynes  developed  his  own  sense  of  freedom  right  here 
by  building  his  motor  car  here.  He  rose  above  his  local 
limitations  without  leaving.  Through  his  accomplish 
ment  he  has  made  possible  a  fine  freedom  for  some  of  the 
rest  of  us.  After  all,  individual  freedom  is  not  simply 
the  inclination  and  the  liberty  to  get  up  and  go  elsewhere ; 
nor  is  it,  as  people  seem  to  think,  something  only  to  be 
embodied  in  forms  of  government.  I  consider  it  some 
thing  quite  detached  from  any  kind  of  government  what 
ever,  a  thing  which  exists  in  the  human  mind  and,  indeed, 
is  mind." 

Franklin  was  at  his  very  best,  I  thought. 

"This  is  getting  very  esoteric,  Franklin,"  I  commented, 
"very,  very  esoteric." 

"Just  the  same,"  he  continued,  "the  automobile  is  a 
part  of  this  same  sense  of  freedom,  the  desire  for  freedom 
made  manifest;  not  the  freedom  of  the  group  but  the 
freedom  of  the  individual.  That's  about  what  it  amounts 
to  in  the  ultimate.  Here  we  have  been  traveling  across 
country,  not  limited  in  our  ability  to  respond  as  we  chose 
to  the  'call  of  the  road'  and  of  the  outdoors  in  general; 
and  we  have  been  bound  by  no  rule  save  our  own,  not 
by  the  schedule  of  any  organization.  That  same  free 
dom  was  in  Haynes'  mind  in  the  first  instance,  and  right 
here,  stationary  in  Indiana, — and  it  was  generated  by 
Indiana, — the  conditions  here." 


432  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

"Yes,"  I  agreed. 

"Well,  to  me  Indiana  is  noteworthy  in  having  done  and 
in  still  doing  just  that  sort  of  thing.  It  stands  unique  in 
having  produced  a  great  many  celebrated  men  and  women 
in  all  departments  of  work,  not  only  those  who  have  de 
parted  from  the  state  but  those  who  have  remained  and 
gained  a  publicity  for  their  achievements  far  outside  its 
boundaries.  It  was,  I'm  confident,  primarily  this  soil- 
generated  call  that  came  to  you.  It  came  to  me.  It  r^ust 
have  come  the  same  to  many  others,  or  to  all  I  should  say 
who  have  accomplished  things,  those  who  have  grasped 
at  or  struggled  for,  if  you  wish  to  speak  of  it  that  way, 
universal  standards  and  scope.  You  felt  it  and  picked  up 
and  went  away  some  years  ago ;  now  on  your  return  you 
do  not  feel  the  old  generative  impulse  any  more;  every 
thing  seems  miserably  changed  and  the  beauty  to  a  large 
extent  faded.  But  it  is  not.  I  also  do  not  find  things  the 
same  any  more.  Yet  I  am  convinced  the  old  call  is  still 
here;  and  when  I  return  I  have  a  feeling  that  out  here  on 
the  farms,  driving  the  cows  in  the  morning  and  at  evening, 
in  the  small  towns,  and  hanging  around  the  old  watergaps 
along  the  creeks,  are  boys  just  like  we  used  to  be,  to 
whom  the  most  vital  thing  in  life  is  this  call  and  the  long 
ing — to  be  free.  Not  to  be  free  necessarily  or  at  all,  of 
these  local  experiences,  but  to  achieve  a  working  contact 
with  universal  things." 

"That  sounds  very  well,  at  least,"  I  commented. 

"There's  something  in  it,  I  tell  you,"  he  insisted,  "and 
what's  more,  though  I'm  not  inclined  to  make  so  very 
much  of  that,  Indiana  was  originally  French  territory  and 
La  Salle  and  his  companions  coming  down  here  may  have 
brought  a  psychic  sprig  of  the  original  French  spirit, 
which  has  resulted  in  all  these  things  we  have  been  dis 
cussing." 

"You  surely  don't  believe  that?"  I  questioned. 

"Well,  I  don't  know.  Certainly  Indiana  is  different — 
inquisitive,  speculative,  constructive — the  characteristics 
which  have  most  distinguished  the  French.  And,  by  the 
way,"  he  added,  returning  to  Haynes  and  his  car  for  a 


o> 

W    >> 


HAIL,  INDIANA!  433 

moment,  "a  short  time  before  Haynes  developed  his 
automobile,  though  not  long  enough,  I'm  sure,  or  to  such 
an  extent  that  he  could  have  known  much  of  its  progress, 
the  same  problem  was  being  studied  and  worked  out  in 
France  by  Levasser." 

He  looked  at  me  as  though  he  thought  this  was  sig 
nificant,  then  continued:  "But  I'm  really  not  inclined  to 
think  that  all  this  stuff  is  true  or  that  there  is  a  deep  laid 
spiritual  connection  between  France  and  Indiana.  I 
don't.  It's  all  amusing  speculation,  but  I  do  believe  there 
is  something  in  the  soil  and  light  idea." 

He  leaned  back  and  we  ceased  talking. 


CHAPTER    LIII 

FISHING   IN   THE   BUSSERON   AND   A    COUNTY    FAIR 

IT  was  just  outside  of  Sullivan,  a  mile  or  two  or 
three,  that  we  encountered  the  Busseron,  the  first  stream 
in  which,  as  a  boy,  I  ever  fished.  The  strangeness  of  that 
experience  comes  back  to  me  even  now — the  wonder,  the 
beauty  of  a  shallow  stream,  pooled  in  places,  its  banks 
sentineled  by  tall  trees,  its  immediate  shoreline  orna 
mented  by  arrogant  weeds  and  bushes  blooming  violently. 

The  stillness  of  the  woods,  the  novelty  of  a  long  bam 
boo  pole  and  a  white  line  and  a  red  and  green  cork;  a 
hook,  worms,  the  nibble  of  the  unseen  creature  below  the 
yellow  surface  of  the  stream.  Even  now  I  hear  a  distant 
gun  shot — hunters  prowling  after  birds.  I  see  a  dragon 
fly,  steely  blue  and  gauze  of  wing,  fluttering  and  shimmer 
ing  above  my  cork  (why  should  they  love  cork  floats  so 
much?).  My  brother  Ed  has  a  nibble!  Great,  kind 
heaven,  his  cork  is  gone — once !  twice ! ! 

"Pull  him  out,  Ed." 

"For  God's  sake,  pull  him  out!" 

"Gee,  look  at  that!" 

Oh,  a  black  and  white  silvery  fish — or  a  dark,  wet,  slip 
pery  cat — as  lovely  and  lustrous  as  porcelain.  Oh,  it's 
on  the  grass  now,  flipping  here  and  there.  My  nerves  are 
all  a-tingle,  my  hair  on  end,  with  delight.  I  can  scarcely 
wait  until  I  get  a  bite — hours  perhaps — for  my  brother 
Ed  was  always  a  luckier  fisherman  than  I,  or  a  better  one. 

And  then  late  in  the  afternoon,  after  hours  of  this 
wonder  world,  we  trudge  home,  along  the  warm,  dusty, 
yellow  country  road;  the  evening  sun  is  red  in  the 
West,  our  feet  buried  in  the  dust.  Not  a  wagon,  not 
a  sound,  save  that  of  wood  doves,  bluejays,  the  spir 
itual,  soulful,  lyric  thrush.  On  a  long,  limp  twig  with  a 

434 


FISHING  IN  THE  BUSSERON  435 

fork  at  the  end  is  strung  our  fish,  so  small  and  stiff  now — 
so  large,  glistening,  brilliant,  when  we  caught  them.  On 
every  hand  are  field  fragrances,  the  distant  low  of  cows 
and  the  grunts  of  pigs.  I  hear  the  voice  of  a  farmer — 
"Poo-gy!  Poo-gy!  Poogy!  Poogy!" 

"Gee,  ma  kin  fry  these — huh?" 

"You  bet." 

Brown-legged,  dusty,  tired,  we  tramp  back  to  the 
kitchen  door.  There  she  is,  plump,  tolerant,  smiling — a 
gentle,  loving  understanding  of  boys  and  their  hungry, 
restless  ways  written  all  over  her  face. 

"Yes,  they're  fine.  We'll  have  them  for  supper.  Wash 
and  clean  them,  and  then  wash  your  hands  and  feet  and 


come  in." 


On  the  grass  we  sit,  a  pan  between  us,  cleaning  those 
penny  catches.  The  day  has  been  so  wonderful  that  we 
think  the  fish  must  be  perfect.  And  they  are,  to  us.  And 
then  the  after-supper  grouping  on  the  porch,  the  velvety 
dusk  descending,  the  bats,  the  mosquitoes,  the  smudge 
carried  about  the  house  to  drive  out  the  mosquitoes,  tales 
of  Indians  and  battle  chiefs  long  dead,  the  stars,  slumber. 

I  can  feel  my  mother's  hand  as  I  lean  against  her  knee 
and  sleep. 

By  just  such  long,  hot  yellow  roads  as  Ed  and  I  trav 
ersed  as  boys  Franklin  and  I  came  eventually  to  Vin- 
cennes,  Indiana,  but  only  after  traversing  a  region  so  flat 
and  yet  so  rich  that  it  was  a  delight  to  look  upon.  I  had 
never  really  seen  it  before — or  its  small,  sweet  simple 
towns — Paxton,  Carlisle,  Oaktown,  Busseron.  The  fields 
were  so  rich  and  warm  and  moist  that  they  were  given 
over  almost  entirely  to  the  growing  of  melons — water 
and  cantaloupe,  great  far  flung  stretches  of  fields.  Large, 
deep-bodied,  green-painted  wagons  came  creaking  by, 
four,  five,  and  six  in  a  row,  hauling  melons  to  the  nearest 
siding  where  were  cars.  There  were  melon  packing 
sheds  to  be  seen  here  and  there,  where  muskmelons  were 
being  labeled  and  crated.  It  was  lovely.  At  one  point 
we  stopped  a  man  and  bought  two  watermelons  and  sat 
down  by  the  roadside  to  eat.  Other  machines  passed  and 


436  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

the  occupants  looked  at  us  as  though  we  had  stolen  them. 

"Here  we  are,"  I  said  to  Franklin,  "three  honest  men, 
eating  our  hard-earned  melons,  and  these  people  believe 
we  stole  them." 

"Yes,  but  think  of  our  other  crimes,"  he  replied,  "and 
anyhow,  who  wouldn't — three  men  eating  melons  by  a 
roadside,  the  adjoining  fields  of  which  are  dotted  with 
melons." 

The  man  who  had  passed  in  the  buggy  had  leered  at 
us  in  such  a  convicting  way. 

And  yet  I  have  Franklin  and  Bert  to  witness  we  paid 
ten  cents  each  for  two  of  the  best  melons  we  ever  tasted. 

At  Paxton  and  at  Carlisle  again  we  came  upon  coal 
mines — that  vein  of  soft  coal  which  seems  to  underlie  this 
whole  region.  Miners  in  droves  were  to  be  seen  walking 
along  the  roads  as  at  Wilkes-Barre,  their  faces  smudgy, 
their  little  lamps  standing  up  from  their  caps,  their  big 
tin  buckets  hanging  on  or  tucked  under  their  arms.  We 
stopped  at  one  town  and  examined  the  exterior  of  a  mine 
because  it  was  so  near  the  road.  Every  few  seconds  out 
of  its  subterranean  depths  (three  hundred  and  fifty  feet, 
the  man  told  me)  up  a  deep,  dripping  shaft  would  come  a 
small  platform  carrying  several  small  cars  of  coal,  which 
would  be  shunted  onto  a  runway  and  "empties"  pushed  in 
to  take  their  places.  I  asked  the  man  who  ran  the  engine 
in  the  nearby  shed  how  many  tons  of  coal  they  would 
take  out  in  a  day.  "Oh,  about  four  hundred,"  he  said. 

"Any  men  ever  killed  here?" 

"Yes,  occasionally." 

"Recently?" 

"Well,  there  was  an  explosion  two  years  ago." 

"Many  men  killed?" 

"Eight." 

"Were  there  any  before  that?" 

"Two,  about  three  years  before." 

He  wiped  his  sweaty  forehead  with  a  grimy  hand. 

"Wouldn't  like  to  go  down,  would  you?"  he  asked 
genially,  after  a  time — quite  unconscious  of  our  earlier 
conversation,  I  think. 


FISHING  IN  THE  BUSSERON  437 

"No,  thanks,"  I  replied. 

I  had  a  sicky  feeling,  conveyed  by  that  dark,  dripping 
shaft.  Three  hundred  and  fifty  feet — not  me ! 

But  I  said  to  myself  as  I  looked  at  all  the  healthy, 
smiling  miners  we  met  farther  on,  "If  I  were  a  prince  or 
a  president  and  these  were  my  subjects,  how  proud  I 
would  be  of  a  land  that  contained  such — how  earnest  for 
their  well  being" — I  had  so  little  courage  to  do  what  they 
were  doing. 

But  in  spite  of  these  mines,  which  were  deep  and  far- 
reaching,  as  we  learned,  in  many  districts  stretching  for 
miles  in  different  directions,  the  soil  manifested  that  same 
fertility  and  the  land  grew  flatter  and  flatter.  All  the 
towns  in  here  were  apparently  dependent  upon  them. 
There  were  no  rises  of  ground.  Interesting  groves  of 
trees  crowded  to  the  roadside  at  times,  providing  a  cool 
ing  shade,  and  excessively  marshy  lands  appeared,  packed 
with  hazel  bushes  and  goldenrod,  but  no  iron  weed  as  in 
the  East.  The  roads  were  sped  over  by  handsome  auto 
mobiles — much  finer  in  many  instances  than  ours — and  I 
took  it  that  they  were  representative  of  the  real  farmer 
wealth  here,  a  wealth  we  as  a  family  had  never  been  per 
mitted  to  taste. 

In  about  two  hours  we  entered  Vincennes — a  front  tire 
having  blown  up  just  outside  Sullivan  on  the  banks  of 
the  Busseron.  At  its  edge  we  came  upon  a  fairgrounds 
so  gaily  bedecked  with  tents  and  flags  that  we  parked 
our  car  and  went  in — to  see  the  sights.  The  Knox  County 
Fair.  It  seemed  to  me  that  this  farmers'  show  supported 
my  belief  in  their  prosperity,  for  to  me  at  least  it  turned 
out  to  be  the  most  interesting  county  fair  I  had  ever  seen. 
The  animals  displayed — prize  sows  and  boars,  horses  and 
sheep  of  different  breeds,  chickens  and  domestic  animals 
of  various  kinds, — were  intensely  interesting  to  look  at 
and  so  attractively  displayed.  I  never  saw  so  many  fat 
sheep,  dams  and  rams,  nor  more  astonishing  hogs,  great, 
sleek  rolling  animals  that  blinked  at  us  with  their  little 
eyes  and  sniffed  and  grunted.  Great  white  pleasant  tents 
were  devoted  to  farm  machinery  and  automobiles  and 


438  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

by  these  alone  one  could  tell  that  here  was  a  prosperous 
and  buying  population,  else  the  manufacturers  had  never 
troubled  to  send  so  much  and  such  expensive  machinery. 
All  that  the  farmer  could  use — machines  for  ploughing, 
planting,  cutting,  reaping,  binding,  fertilizing,  baling  (I 
think  I  counted  a  score  of  separate  machines  of  this 
kind),  to  others  intended  for  use  around  the  home — 
kerosene  cook  stoves,  well  pumps,  cream  separators, 
churns,  washing  machines — a  whole  host  of  these — to 
the  latest  inventions  in  motor  ploughs  and  motor  driven 
farm  wagons — were  here.  The  display  of  automobiles 
was  lavish — really  all  the  important  makes  were  repre 
sented  and  in  addition  there  was  a  racetrack  with  races 
going  on  and  a  large  number  of  tented  amusements — the 
wild  men  from  Boola-Boola;  Calgero,  the  mindreader, 
several  moving  picture  shows,  a  gypsy  dancer,  and  the 
like. 

Franklin  and  I  browsed  around  at  our  leisure.  On  so 
fine  and  so  hot  an  afternoon  it  was  amusing  to  idle  under 
these  great  trees  and  study  the  country  throng.  A  hungry 
boy  was  treated  to  "weenies"  (the  Indiana  version  of 
uhot  dog")  and  coffee  by  him — a  treat  he  was  very  back 
ward  about  accepting.  Hundreds,  judging  by  the  parked 
cars  outside,  possessed  automobiles.  Various  church  con 
gregations  of  the  region  had  established  restaurant  booths 
to  aid  one  or  other  of  their  religious  causes.  At  a  table  in 
the  booth  of  the  Holy  Trinity  Roman  Catholic  Church  of 
Vincennes  I  ate  a  dish  of  chicken  dumplings,  a  piece  of 
cherry  pie,  and  drank  several  glasses  of  milk,  thereby 
demonstrating,  I  think,  that  no  inalienable  enmity  existed 
between  myself  and  the  Catholic  Church,  at  least  not  on 
the  subject  of  food.  At  this  booth,  besides  the  several  be- 
calicoed  and  bestarched  old  ladies  who  were  in  attend 
ance,  I  noticed  a  tall  Bernhardtesque  girl  of  very  graceful 
and  sinuous  lines  who  was  helping  to  wait  on  people.  She 
had  red  hair,  long  delicate  tapering  fingers,  a  wasplike  but 
apparently  uncorseted  waist,  and  almond  shaped  greenish 
grey  eyes.  No  edict  of  the  Church  prevented  her  from 
wearing  hip  tight  skirts  or  one  that  came  lower  than 


FISHING  IN  THE  BUSSERON  439 

perhaps  four  or  five  inches  below  the  knee.  She  had  on 
rings  and  pins  and,  quite  unconsciously  I  think,  took  grace 
ful  and  dreamful  attitudes.  There  was  a  kind  of  high 
scorn — if  not  rebellion — in  her  mood,  for  one  aiding  a 

religious  cause 

I  wondered  how  long  Vincennes  and  the  sacred  pre 
cincts  of  the  Church  would  retain  her. 


CHAPTER  LIV 

THE  FERRY  AT  DECKER 

Is  it  an  illusion  of  romance,  merely,  or  is  it  true  that, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  French,  governmentally 
speaking,  have  been  out  of  old  Vincennes — the  very  re 
gion  of  it — for  over  a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  and  that 
nearly  all  we  know  of  the  town  of  twenty  thousand  has 
come  into  existence  in  the  last  fifty  years,  there  still 
exists  in  it,  hovers  over  it,  the  atmosphere  of  old  France? 
Do  we  see,  always,  what  we  would  like  to  see,  or  is  there 
something  in  this  matter  of  predisposition,  the  planting 
of  a  seed,  however  small,  which  eventually  results  in  a 
tree  of  the  parent  stock?  I  was  scarcely  prepared  to 
believe  that  there  was  anything  of  old  France  about  this 
town — it  seemed  quite  too  much  to  ask,  and  yet  rolling 
leisurely  through  these  streets,  it  seemed  to  me  that  there 
was  a  great  deal  of  it.  The  houses,  quite  a  number  of 
them,  had  that  American  French  Colonial  aspect  which 
we  have  all  come  to  associate  with  their  forbears,  the 
palaces  and  decorative  arts  of  the  high  Louis!  France, 
the  modifier  of  the  flamboyant  dreams  of  the  Renais 
sance!  France,  the  mother,  really,  of  the  classic  styles 
of  England!  The  cooler,  more  meditative  and  Puritan 
spirit  took  all  that  was  best  in  the  dreams  and  super- 
grand  taste  of  the  France  of  the  Kings  and  Emperors 
and  gave  us  Heppelwhite  and  Sheraton,  and  those 
charming  architectural  fancies  known  as  Georgian.  Or 
am  I  wrong? 

And  here  in  Vincennes,  in  the  homes  at  least,  there  was 
something  reminiscent  of  this  latter,  while  in  the  prin 
cipal  streets — Third  and  Second — and  in  the  names  of 
some  of  the  others,  there  was  a  suggestion  of  such  towns 
or  cities  as  Rouen  and  Amiens — a  mere  suggestion,  per- 

440 


THE  FERRY  AT  DECKER  441 

haps,  some  might  insist,  but  definite  enough  to  me.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  tucked  away  in  this  southern  river  re 
gion  of  Indiana,  it  seemed  very  French,  and  I  recalled 
now  that  my  first  and  only  other  connection  with  it  had 
been  through  a  French  woman,  a  girl  protege  of  my 
mother,  who  had  married  (she  was  a  wild,  pagan  crea 
ture,  as  I  can  testify)  the  manager  or  captain  of  the  prin 
cipal  fire  station  in  the  then  city  of  twelve  thousand.  Be 
fore  her  marriage,  at  Terre  Haute,  she  had  done  sewing 
for  my  mother,  in  our  more  prosperous  days,  and  when 
conditions  grew  so  bad  that  my  mother  felt  that  she 
must  get  out  of  Terre  Haute,  instead  of  going  to  Sullivan 
direct  (I  do  not  think  her  original  intention  was  to  go 
to  Sullivan  at  all)  she  wrote  this  French  woman  of  her 
troubles,  and  upon  her  invitation  visited  her  there.  For 
a  period  of  six  weeks,  or  longer,  we  lived  in  the  apart 
ment  which  was  a  part  of  the  fire  captain's  perquisites,  and 
a  part  of  the  central  fire  station  itself — the  rear  half 
of  the  second  floor.  There  must  have  been  some  unim 
portant  connection  between  this  and  the  county  jail  or 
central  police  station,  or  both,  for  in  a  building  adjoin 
ing  at  the  rear  I  remember  there  was  a  jail,  and  that  I 
could  go  back,  if  I  chose,  downstairs  and  out,  and  see 
some  of  the  incarcerated  looking  out  through  the  bars. 
It  was  a  pleasant  enough  place  as  such  things  go,  and 
my  mother  must  have  had  some  idea  of  remaining  in 
Vincennes,  for  not  long  after  we  arrived  my  sister  and 
brother  and  I  were  put  in  another  Catholic  School, — the 
bane  of  my  youthful  life.  This  did  not  last  very  long, 
however,  for  shortly  thereafter  we  were  taken  out  and 
removed  to  Sullivan.  Eleven  years  later,  at  the  time  of 
my  mother's  death  in  Chicago,  this  woman,  who  was 
then  and  there  a  dressmaker,  came  to  cry  over  her  coffin 
and  to  declare  my  mother  the  best  friend  she  ever  had. 
My  youthful  impressions  of  Vincennes,  sharp  as  they 
may  have  been  at  the  time,  had  by  now  become  very 
vague.  I  remember  that  from  the  fire  tower,  where  hung 
an  alarm  bell  and  to  which  we  were  occasionally  per 
mitted  to  ascend,  the  straight  flowing  Wabash  River  was 


442  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

to  be  seen;  also  that  northward,  toward  Sullivan,  were 
Merom  Bluffs,  where  pleasure  seekers  from  Vincennes 
were  accustomed  to  drive.  My  mother  went  once.  Also, 
that  certain  tow  headed  and  dark  girls  seemed  very  nu 
merous  about  the  fire  station  at  night.  Also  that  once, 
during  our  stay,  there  was  a  big  fire,  and  that  we  all 
arose  and  went  out  to  join  the  great  throng  watching  it. 
Our  host,  the  captain,  was  seen  to  mount  a  ladder  and 
break  in  a  window  and  disappear  in  a  red  glow,  much 
to  my  mother's  and  my  own  horror.  But  he  came  back 
alive. 

In  ambling  about,  I  found  the  exact  firehouse,  enlarged 
and  improved,  "where  it  has  always  been,"  as  one  of  the 
neighboring  tradesmen  told  me — new  automobile  engines 
and  trucks  in  it — and  then  I  was  ready  to  go.  I  had  seen 
all  I  could  hope  to  remember,  even  dimly.  We  hurried 
to  a  neighboring  garage,  took  on  a  store  of  oil  and  gaso 
line,  and  were  off  in  the  twilight  and  the  moonlight,  for 
Evansville. 

Uncertain  is  the  outcome  of  all  automobilists'  plans 
forever  and  ever,  as  with  all  other  plans.  Although 
we  had  inquired  and  inquired,  getting  the  exact  way  (and 
Franklin's  conferences  on  these  matters  were  always  ex 
tended  and  minute)  we  were  soon  safely  on  the  wrong 
road.  We  had  been  told  to  make  for  a  place  called 
Decker,  via  a  town  called  Purcell,  but  soon  in  the  shades 
of  a  fast  falling  night  we  were  scuttling  up  a  cowpath, 
under  dark  and  ghostly  trees. 

"How  would  it  do  to  call  on  some  squirrel  or  chip 
munk  and  pay  our  respects?"  suggested  Franklin.  "They 
appear  to  be  about  the  only  people  living  here." 

We  decided  to  go  back. 

Once  more  on  a  fairly  good  road  again,  a  mile  or  so 
back,  we  met  a  charming  milkmaid,  with  fine  arms,  pink 
cheeks,  and  two  brimming  buckets  of  milk.  Modestly, 
she  told  us  we  were  on  the  wrong  road. 

"You  should  have  kept  the  macadam  road  to  Purcell. 
This  goes  to  St.  Francisville  across  the  river.  But  if  you 


THE  FERRY  AT  DECKER  443 

go  up  here  a  mile  or  two  and  take  the  first  road  to  your 
left,  it  will  bring  you  to  St.  Thomas,  and  there's  a  road 
on  from  there  to  Decker.  But  it  would  be  better  if  you 
went  back." 

"Back?  Never!"  I  said  to  Franklin,  as  the  girl  went 
on,  and  thinking  of  the  miles  we  had  come.  "It's  a  fine 
night.  Look  at  the  moon."  (There  was  an  almost  full 
moon  showing  a  golden  tip  in  the  eastern  sky.)  uSoon 
it  will  be  as  bright  as  day.  Let's  ride  on.  We'll  get  to 
Evansville  by  morning,  anyhow.  It's  only  sixty  miles  or 


so." 


"Yes,  if  we  could  go  straight,"  amended  Bert,  pessi 
mistically. 

"Oh,  we'll  go  straight  enough.  She  says  St.  Thomas 
is  only  eight  miles  to  our  left." 

So  on  we  went.  The  moon  rose.  Across  flat  meadows 
in  the  pale  light,  lamps  in  distant  houses  looked  like  ships 
at  sea,  sailing  off  a  sandy  coast.  There  were  clumps  of 
pines  or  poplars  gracefully  distributed  about  the  land 
scape.  The  air  was  moist,  but  so  fragrant  and  warm ! 
These  were  the  bottom  lands  of  the  White  and  Wabash 
Rivers,  quite  marshy  in  places,  and  fifteen  miles  farther 
south  we  would  have  to  cross  the  White  River  on  a  ferry. 

We  sped  on.  The  road  became  sandy  and  soft.  Now 
and  then  it  broke  into  muddy  stretches  where  we  had 
to  go  slow.  From  straggling  teamsters  we  gathered  char 
acteristic  and  sometimes  amusing  directions. 

"Yuh  go  up  here  about  four  miles  to  Ed  Peters'  place. 
It's  the  big  white  store  on  the  corner — yuh  can't  miss  it. 
Then  yuh  turn  to  yer  left  about  three  miles,  till  yuh  come 
to  the  school  on  the  high  ground  there  (a  rise  of  about 
eight  feet  it  was).  Then  yuh  turn  to  yer  right  and  go 
down  through  the  marsh  to  the  iron  bridge,  and  that'll 
bring  yer  right  into  the  Decker  Road." 

We  gathered  this  as  we  were  leaving  St.  Thomas,  a 
lonely  Catholic  outpost,  with  a  church  and  sisters'  school 
of  some  kind. 

On  and  on.  Riding  is  delightful  in  such  a  country. 
In  lovely  cottages  as  we  tore  past  I  heard  mellifluous 


444  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

voices  singing  in  some  archaic  way.  You  could  see 
lighted  lamps  on  the  family  tables, — a  man  or  woman 
or  both  sitting  by  reading.  On  doorsteps,  in  dooryards 
now  and  then  were  loungers,  possibly  indifferent  to  the 
mosquitoes.  The  moon  cleared  to  a  silvery  perfection 
and  lighted  all  the  fields  and  trees.  There  were  owl 
voices  and  bats.  In  Ed  Peters'  place  a  crowd  of  country 
bumpkins  were  disporting  themselves. 

"Har,  har,  har!    Whee-oh!" 

You  should  have  heard  the  laughter.  It  was  infec 
tious. 

A  man  outside  directed  us  further.  We  came  to  the 
school,  the  iron  bridge  in  the  marsh,  and  then  by  a  wrong 
road  away  from  Decker,  but  we  found  it  finally. 

It  was  a  railroad  town.  On  the  long  steps  of  a  very 
imposing  country  store,  lighted  by  flaring  oil  lamps,  a 
great  crowd  of  country  residents  (all  men)  were  gath 
ered  to  see  the  train  come  in, — an  event  soon  to  happen, 
I  gathered.  They  swam  in  a  Vierge  or  Goyaesque  haze, 
— a  full  hundred  of  them,  their  ivory  faces  picked  out 
in  spots  by  the  uncertain  light.  We  asked  of  one  the 
road  to  Evansville,  and  he  told  us  to  go  back  over  the 
bridge  and  south,  or  to  our  left,  as  we  crossed  the  bridge. 

"The  ferry  hain't  here.  It  may  be  as  ye  can't  get 
across  t'night.  The  river's  runnin'  purty  high." 

"That  would  be  a  nice  note,  wouldn't  it?"  commented 
Bert. 

"Well,  Decker  looks  interesting  to  me,"  observed 
Franklin.  "What's  the  matter  with  Decker?  I'd  like  to 
sketch  that  crowd  anyhow." 

We  went  on  down  to  the  ferry  to  see. 

En  route  we  encountered  a  perfectly  horrible  stretch 
of  road — great,  mucky  ruts  that  almost  stalled  the  car 
— and  in  the  midst  of  it  an  oil  well,  or  the  flaring  industry 
of  driving  one.  There  was  a  great  towering  well  frame 
in  the  air,  a  plunger,  a  forge,  an  engine,  and  various 
flaring  torches  set  about  and  men  working.  It  was  so 
attractive  that,  although  up  to  this  moment  we  had  been 
worrying  about  the  car,  we  got  out  and  went  over,  leav- 


THE    FERRY    AT     DECKER 


THE  FERRY  AT  DECKER  445 

ing  it  standing  in  inches  and  inches  of  mud.  Watching 
the  blaze  of  furnaces  for  sharpening  drills  and  listening 
to  the  monotonous  plunging  of  the  drill,  we  sat  about 
here  for  half  an  hour  basking  in  the  eerie  effect  of  the 
torches  in  the  moonlight  and  against  the  dark  wood.  It 
was  fascinating. 

A  little  later  we  came  to  the  waterside  and  the  alleged 
ferry.  It  was  only  a  road  that  led  straight  into  the 
river — a  condition  which  caused  Franklin  to  remark  that 
they  must  expect  us  to  drive  under.  At  the  shore  was 
a  bell  on  a  post,  with  a  rope  attached.  No  sign  indicated 
its  import,  but  since  far  on  the  other  side  we  could  see 
lights,  we  pulled  it  vigorously.  It  clanged  loud  and  long. 
Between  us  and  the  lights  rolled  a  wide  flood,  smooth  and 
yet  swiftly  moving,  apparently.  Small  bits  of  things  could 
be  seen  going  by  in  the  pale  light.  The  moon  on  the 
water  had  the  luster  of  an  oyster  shell.  There  was  a 
faint  haze  or  fog  which  prevented  a  clear  reflection. 

But  our  bell  brought  no  response.  We  stood  here  be 
tween  bushes  and  trees  admiring  the  misty,  pearly  river, 
but  we  wanted  to  get  on,  too.  On  the  other  side  was  a 
town.  You  could  hear  laughing  voices  occasionally,  and 
scraps  of  piano  playing  or  a  voice  singing,  but  the  im 
mediate  shore  line  was  dark.  I  seized  the  rope  again 
and  clanged  and  clanged  "like  a  house  afire,"  Bert  said. 

Still  no  response. 

"Maybe  they  don't  run  at  night,"  suggested  Bert. 

"He  said  the  water  might  be  too  high,"  commented 
Franklin.  "It  looks  simple  enough." 

Once  more  I  pulled  the  bell. 

Then  after  another  drift  of  moments  there  was  a  faint 
sound  as  of  scraping  chains  or  oars,  and  after  a  few 
moments  more,  a  low  something  began  to  outline  itself 
in  the  mist.  It  was  a  flat  boat  and  it  was  coming,  rigged 
to  an  overhead  wire  and  propelled  by  the  water.  It  was 
coming  quite  fast,  I  thought.  Soon  it  was  off  shore  and 
one  of  the  two  men  aboard — an  old  man  and  a  young 
one — was  doing  something  with  the  rear  chain,  pulling 
the  boat  farther  upstream,  nearer  the  wire. 


446  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

"Git  that  end  pole  out  of  the  way,"  called  the  older  of 
the  two  men,  the  one  nearer  us,  and  then  the  long,  flat 
dish  scraped  the  shore  and  they  were  pushing  it  far  in 
land  with  poles  to  make  it  fast. 

"What's  the  matter?  Couldn't  you  hear  the  bell?"  I 
inquired  jocundly. 

"Yes,  I  heard  the  bell,  all  right,"  replied  the  older 
man  truculently.  "This  here  boat  ain't  supposed  to  run 
nights  anyhow  in  this  here  flood.  Y'can't  tell  what'll 
happen,  logs  and  drifts  comin'  down.  We've  lost  three 
automobiles  in  her  already  as  it  is." 

I  speculated  nervously  as  to  that  while  he  grumbled 
and  fussed. 

"Hook  'er  up  tight,"  he  called  to  his  assistant.  "She 
might  slip  out  yet." 

"But  up  at  Decker,"  I  added  mischievously,  "they  said 
you  ran  all  night." 

"They  said!  They  said!  Whadda  they  know  about 
this  here  ferry?  I'm  runnin'  this,  I  guess.  Havin'  to 
git  out  here  nights,  tar-erd  (he  was  meaning  tired)  as 
I  am,  an'  take  this  thing  back  an'  forth.  I'm  gittin'  sick 
on  it.  I  hain't  got  to  do  it." 

"I  know,"  observed  Franklin,  "but  we're  very  anxious 
to  get  across  tonight.  We  have  to  be  in  Evansville  by 
morning  anyhow." 

"Well,  I  don't  know  nothin'  about  that.  All  I  know 
is  everybody's  in  a  all-fired  hurry  to  git  across." 

"Well,  that's  all  right  now,  doctor,"  I  soothed. 
"We'll  fix  this  up  on  the  other  side.  You  just  take  us 
over  like  a  good  sort." 

The  aroma  of  a  tip  seemed  to  soothe  him  a  little. 

"Be  keerful  how  you  run  that  car,"  he  commented 
to  Bert.  "One  feller  ran  his  car  on  an'  up-ended  this 
thing  an'  off  he  went.  We  never  did  get  the  machine 
out.  She  was  carried  on  down  stream." 

Bert  manoeuvred  the  car  very  gingerly.  Then  we  poled 
off  in  the  moonlight,  and  I  could  see  plainly  that  there 
was  a  flood.  We  were  slow  getting  out  to  where  the 
main  current  was,  but  once  there  its  speed  shocked  me. 


THE  FERRY  AT  DECKER  447 

A  vast,  sullen  volume  of  water  was  pouring  down — on 
and  away  into  the  Wabash,  the  Ohio,  the  Mississippi, 
the  Gulf.  I  was  thinking  how  wonderful  water  is  any 
how — out  of  the  unknown,  into  the  unknown,  like  our 
selves,  it  comes  and  goes.  And  here,  like  petty  actors 
in  a  passing  play,  we  were  crossing  under  the  moon — 
the  water  as  much  a  passing  actor  as  any  of  us. 

"Better  pay  out  more  at  the  stern  there,"  called  the 
old  man  to  his  helper.  "She's  pushin'  her  pretty  hard." 

The  water  was  fairly  boiling  along  the  upstream  side. 

"At  any  minute  now,"  he  continued,  "a  bundle  of  drift 
or  logs  or  weeds  is  like  to  come  along  and  foul  us,  and 
then  if  that  there  wire  gave  way,  where'd  we  be?" 

I  felt  a  little  uncomfortable  at  the  thought,  I  confess 
— Franklin's  good  machine,  his  inability  to  swim,  the 
eddying  swiftness  of  this  stream. 

Fortunately,  at  this  rate,  the  center  was  soon  passed 
and  we  began  to  near  the  other  shore.  The  current  drove 
us  up  into  a  deep-cut  shallow  inlet,  where  they  poled 
the  punt  close  to  shore  and  fastened  it. 

Then  Bert  had  to  make  a  swift  run  with  the  machine, 
for  just  beyond  the  end  of  the  boat  was  a  steep  incline 
up  which  we  all  had  to  clamber. 

"Don't  let  'er  slip  back  on  yer,"  he  cautioned.  "If 
yer  do,  she's  like  to  go  back  in  the  water"  .  .  .  and  Bert 
sent  "her"  snorting  uphill. 

We  paid  the  bill — fifty  cents — (twentyfive  of  that  be 
ing  tacked  on  as  a  penalty  for  routing  him  out  "tar-erd 
as  he  was"  and  fifteen  cents  extra  for  disturbing  observa 
tions  about  drifts,  lost  automobiles,  and  the  like).  Then 
we  bustled  up  and  through  an  interesting,  cleanly  looking 
place  called  Hazleton  (population  twentyfive  hundred) 
and  so  on  toward  Evansville,  which  we  hoped  surely  to 
reach  by  midnight. 


CHAPTER  LV 

A   MINSTREL   BROTHER 

BUT  we  didn't  reach  Evansville,  for  all  our  declaration 
and  pretence  of  our  need.  A  delightful  run  along  a 
delightful  road,  overhung  with  trees  (and  now  that  we 
were  out  of  the  valley  between  the  two  rivers,  cut  be 
tween  high  banks  of  tree  shaded  earth),  brought  us  to 
Princeton,  a  town  so  bright  and  clean  looking  that  we 
were  persuaded,  almost  against  our  wishes,  to  pass  the 
night  here.  Some  towns  have  just  so  much  personality. 
They  speak  to  you  of  pleasant  homes  and  pleasant  peo 
ple — a  genial  atmosphere.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  indeed, 
in  all  but  the  poorest  of  these  small  midwestern  towns, 
the  center  of  it  was  graced  by  the  court  house,  a  very  pre 
sentable  building,  and  four  brightly  lighted  business  sides. 
The  walks  about  the  square  were  outlined,  every  fifty  feet 
or  less,  by  a  five-lamp  standard.  The  stores  were  large 
and  clean  and  bright.  A  drug  store  we  visited  contained 
such  an  interesting  array  of  postcards  that  I  bought  a 
dozen — pictures  of  great  grain  elevators,  four  or  five 
of  which  we  had  seen  on  entering  the  town,  sylvan  scenes 
along  the  banks  of  the  Patoka,  a  small  lake  or  watering 
place  called  "Long  Pond,"  and  scenes  along  tree  sheltered 
roads.  I  liked  the  spirit  of  these  small  towns,  quite 
common  everywhere  today,  which  seeks  out  the  charms 
of  the  local  life  and  embodies  them  in  colored  prints,  and 
I  said  so. 

Walk  into  any  drug  or  book  store  of  any  up  to  date 
small  town  today,  and  you  will  find  in  a  trice  nearly 
every  scene  of  importance  and  really  learn  the  char 
acter  and  charms  of  the  vicinity.  Thus  at  Conneaut, 
Ohio,  but  for  the  picture  postcards  which  chronicled  the 
fact,  we  would  never  have  seen  the  giant  cranes  which 

448 


A  MINSTREL  BROTHER  449 

emptied  steel  cars  like  coalscuttles.  Again,  except  for 
the  picture  postcards  displayed,  I  would  never  have 
sensed  the  astonishing  charms  of  Wilkes-Barre,  San- 
dusky,  or  even  my  native  Terre  Haute.  The  picture 
cards  told  all,  in  a  group,  of  what  there  was  to  see. 

We  discovered  a  most  interesting  and  attractive  quick 
lunch  here,  quite  snowy  and  clean,  with  a  bright,  open 
grill  at  the  back,  and  here,  since  we  now  were  hungry 
again,  we  decided  to  eat.  Franklin  saw  cantaloupes  in 
the  window  and  I  announced  that  I  had  bought  a  picture 
card  of  a  cantaloupe  packing  scene  in  a  town  called 
Cantaloupe,  which,  according  to  my  ever  ready  map,  was 
back  on  the  road  we  had  just  come  through. 

"They  ought  to  be  good  around  here,"  he  commented, 
rather  avidly,  I  thought.  "Nice,  fresh  cantaloupe  right 
out  of  the  field." 

We  entered. 

I  did  not  know,  really,  how  seriously  Franklin  craved 
fresh,  ripe,  cold  muskmelon  in  hot  weather  until  we 
got  inside. 

"We'll  have  muskmelon,  eh?"  he  observed  eagerly. 

"All  right.     I'll  divide  one  with  you." 

"Oh,  no,"  he  returned,  with  the  faintest  rise  in  his 
inflection.  "I'd  like  a  whole  one." 

"Delighted,  Franklin,"  I  replied.  "On  with  the  dance. 
Let  muskmelon,  etc." 

He  went  to  the  counter  and  persuaded  the  waiter  maid 
to  set  forth  for  him  two  of  the  very  largest — they  were 
like  small  watermelons — which  he  brought  over. 

"These  look  like  fine  melons,"  he  observed. 

"They're  splendid,"  said  the  girl.  "This  is  a  melon 
country." 

A  traveling  salesman  who  was  eating  over  at  another 
table  exclaimed,  "I  can  vouch  for  that." 

Franklin  and  I  began.  They  were  delicious — fragrant, 
a  luscious  product  of  a  rich  soil.  We  ate  in  silence,  and 
when  his  was  consumed,  he  observed,  eyeing  me  specu- 
latively,  "I  believe  I  could  stand  another  one." 

"Franklin!"  I  exclaimed  reproachfully. 


450  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

"Yes,  I  could,"  he  insisted.  "They're  great,  don't  you 
think  so?" 

"As  good  as  ever  I  have  eaten — better  even." 

"That  settles  it.     I'm  going  to  have  one  more." 

He  brought  it  over  and  ate  it  alone,  while  I  sat  and 
talked  to  him  and  marveled.  Once  more,  when  he  was 
finished,  he  fixed  me  with  his  eye. 

"Well,  now,  how  do  you  feel?"  I  inquired. 

"Fine.  You  know — you'll  think  it's  funny — but  I 
could  eat  another — a  half  anyhow." 

"Franklin!"  I  exclaimed.  "This  is  too  much.  Two 
whole  melons  and  now  a  third!" 

"Do  you  think  it's  too  much?" 

There  was  a  sort  of  childish  naivete  about  the  inquiry 
which  moved  me  to  laughter — and  firmness.  Franklin 
achieves  this  quite  unconsciously,  at  times — a  certain  self- 
abnegating  shyness. 

"I  certainly  do.  Here  it  is  after  eleven.  We  are  sup 
posed  to  be  up  early  and  off — and  here  you  sit  eating 
muskmelons  by  the  crate.  This  is  shameful.  Besides, 
you  can  get  more  tomorrow.  We  are  in  the  land  of 
the  muskmelon." 

"Oh,  all  right,"  he  consented,  quite  crestfallen. 

I  did  not  realize  at  the  time  that  I  was  actually  stop 
ping  him,  and  before  he  had  enough.  It  was  a  joke  on 
my  part. 

The  next  day  was  Wednesday,  a  bright,  sunny  day,  and 
pleasantly  cool.  The  sun  streaming  under  my  black 
shades  at  six  and  earlier  awoke  me,  and  I  arose  and 
surveyed  the  small  town,  as  much  of  it  as  I  could  see 
from  my  window  and  through  encircling  trees.  It  was  as 
clean  and  homey  and  pleasing  as  it  had  seemed  the  night 
before.  By  now  Franklin,  hearing  me  stirring,  was  up  too, 
and  we  awakened  Bert,  who  was  still  asleep.  If  we  were 
to  get  to  Evansville  and  on  to  Indianapolis  and  Carmel 
again  in  this  one  day,  it  would  have  to  be  a  long  and 
speedy  run,  but  even  now  I  began  to  doubt  whether  we 
should  make  it.  Evansville  was  too  interesting  to  me, 
as  one  of  my  home  towns.  It  was  all  of  fifty  miles  away 


A  MINSTREL  BROTHER  451 

as  we  would  ride,  and  after  that  would  come  a  cross 
country  run  of  one  hundred  and  fortyfive  miles  as  the 
crow  flies,  or  counting  the  twists  and  turns  we  would 
make,  say  one  hundred  and  seventyfive  miles — a  scant 
calculation.  There  were,  as  my  map  showed,  at  least 
seven  counties  to  cross  on  returning.  In  our  path  lay 
French  Lick  and  West  Baden — the  advertised  Carlsbads 
of  America.  North  of  that  would  be  Bedford,  the  home 
of  the  world's  supply  of  Indiana  limestone,  and  beyond 
it  Bloomington,  the  seat  of  the  State  University,  where 
I  had  spent  one  dreamy,  lackadaisical  year.  After  that 
a  run  of  at  least  sixtyfive  miles  straight,  let  alone  wind 
ing,  before  we  could  enter  Carmel. 

"It  can't  be  done,  Franklin,"  I  argued,  as  we  dressed. 
"You  said  three  days,  but  it  will  be  four  at  the  earliest, 
if  not  five.  I  want  to  see  a  little  of  Evansville  and 
Bloomington." 

"Well,  if  we  have  decent  roads,  we  can  come  pretty 
near  doing  it,"  he  insisted.  "Certainly  we  can  get  home 
by  tomorrow  night.  I  ought  to.  I  have  a  lot  of  things 
to  do  in  town  Friday." 

"Well,  you're  the  doctor,"  I  agreed,  "so  long  as  I  see 
what  I  want  to  see." 

We  bustled  downstairs,  agreeing  to  breakfast  in 
Evansville.  It  was  six  thirty.  Those  favored  souls  who 
enjoy  rising  early  in  the  morning  and  looking  after  their 
flowers  were  abroad,  admiring,  pinching,  cutting,  water 
ing.  It  was  a  cheering  spectacle.  I  respect  all  people 
who  love  flowers.  It  seems  to  me  one  of  the  preliminary, 
initiative  steps  in  a  love  and  understanding  of  beauty. 
Evansville  came  nearer  at  a  surprising  rate.  I  began 
to  brush  up  my  local  geography  and  list  in  my  mind  the 
things  I  must  see — the  houses  in  which  we  had  lived,  the 
church  and  school  which  I  was  made  to  attend,  the  Ohio 
River,  at  the  foot  of  Main  Street — where  once  in  Janu 
ary,  playing  with  some  boys,  I  fell  into  the  river,  knocked 
off  a  floating  gangway,  and  came  desperately  near  being 
swept  away  by  the  ice.  Then  I  must  see  Blount's  Plow 
Works,  and  the  chair  factory  of  Messrs.  Nienaber  and 


452  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

Fitton,  where  my  brother  Al  worked  for  a  time,  and 
where  of  a  Saturday  I  often  went  to  help  him.  And  the 
Evansville  Ironstone  Pottery  Company  must  be  found, 
too,  at  whose  low  windows  I  was  wont  to  stand  and  de 
lightedly  watch  the  men  form  cups,  plates,  pitchers,  etc., 
out  of  grey,  wet  clay.  This  seemed  to  me  the  most  won 
derful  manufacturing  process  of  all  those  witnessed  by 
me  in  my  youth.  It  was  so  gracefully  and  delicately  ac 
complished.  There  was  only  one  other  thing  that  com 
pared  in  interest,  and  that  was  the  heating  and  melting 
of  iron  in  great  furnaces  in  an  enormous  iron  foundry 
on  the  same  street  with  the  Catholic  School  which  I 
used  to  pass  every  day  and  where  the  pouring  of  the 
glistening  metal  into  cauldrons  and  the  pouring  of  that 
into  wondrously  intricate  moulds  of  sand,  whereby  were 
shaped  iron  fences,  gratings,  culvert  tops,  had  always 
been  of  the  intensest  interest  to  me. 

The  essential  interest  of  Evansville  to  me,  however, 
was  that  at  that  particular  time  in  my  youth,  and  just 
at  the  time  when  seemingly  things  had  reached  a  crisis 
for  my  mother — whose  moods  were  invariably  my  own 
— Evansville  had  appeared  like  a  splendid  new  chapter 
in  our  lives,  and  resolved  all  of  our  difficulties,  for  the 
time  being,  into  nothing.  How  was  this  done?  Well, 
as  I  have  indicated  somewhere,  I  believe,  our  oldest 
brother,  the  oldest  living  member  of  the  family  of  chil 
dren,  had  come  to  my  mother's  rescue  in  the  nick  of  time. 
By  now  he  was  a  successful,  though  up  to  this  time  wan 
dering,  minstrel  man — an  "end  man,"  no  less.  But,  more 
recently  still,  he  had  secured  a  position  with  a  permanent 
or  stock  minstrel  company  located  in  the  Evansville  Opera 
House,  where  he  was  honored  with  the  position  of  inter 
locutor  and  end  man,  as  the  mood  prompted  him,  and 
where  nightly  he  was  supposed  to  execute  a  humorous 
monologue.  Incidentally,  he  was  singing  his  own  songs. 
Also,  incidentally  he  was  conducting  a  humorous  column 
in  a  local  paper,  the  Evansville  Argus.  The  fences  and 
billboards  of  the  city  attested  to  his  comparative  popu- 


A  MINSTREL  BROTHER  453 

larity,  for  a  large  red  and  yellow  single  sheet  print  of 
his  face  was  conspicuously  displayed  in  many  windows. 

His  life  so  far  had  proved  a  charming  version  of  the 
prodigal  son.  As  a  boy  of  seventeen,  for  errors  which 
need  not  be  recounted  here,  he  was  driven  out  of  the 
home.  As  a  man  of  twentyseven  (or  boy)  he  had  now 
returned  (the  winter  previous  to  our  moving)  adorned 
with  a  fur  coat,  a  high  silk  hat,  a  gold-headed  cane. 

My  mother  cried  on  his  shoulder  and  he  on  hers.  He 
really  loved  her  so  tenderly,  so  unwaveringly,  that  this  in 
itself  constituted  a  fine  romance.  At  once  he  promised  to 
solve  all  her  difficulties.  She  must  come  out  of  this.  He 
was  going  to  Evansville  now.  There  is  a  bit  of  private 
history  which  should  be  included  here,  but  which  I  do 
not  wish  to  relate,  at  present.  The  result  was  that 
thereafter  a  weekly  letter  containing  a  few  dollars — three 
or  four — arrived  every  Monday.  (How  often  have  I 
gone  to  the  postoffice  to  get  it!)  Then  there  was 
some  talk  of  a  small  house  he  was  going  to  rent,  and 
of  the  fact  that  we  were  soon  to  move.  Then  one 
summer  day  we  did  go,  and  I  recall  so  well  how,  ar 
riving  in  Evansville  at  about  nine  o'clock  at  night  (my 
mother  and  we  three  youngest),  we  were  met  at  the  sta 
tion  by  the  same  smiling,  happy  brother,  and  taken  to 
the  house  at  1413  East  Franklin  Street;  where  on  seeing 
her  new  home  and  its  rather  comfortable  equipment,  my 
mother  stood  in  the  doorway  and  cried — and  he  with 
her.  I  cannot  say  more  than  that.  It  all  seems  too  won 
derful — too  beautiful,  even  now. 


CHAPTER  LVI 

EVANSVILLE 

BUT  I  cannot  possibly  hope  to  convey  the  delicious 
sting  life  had  in  it  for  me  at  this  time  as  a  spectacle,  a 
dream,  something  in  which  to  bathe  and  be  enfolded,  as 
only  youth  and  love  know  life.  Not  Evansville  alone  but 
life  itself  was  beautiful — the  sky,  the  trees,  the  sun,  the 
visible  scene.  People  hurrying  to  and  fro  or  idling  in 
the  shade,  the  sound  of  church  bells,  of  whistles,  a  wide 
stretch  of  common.  Getting  up  in  the  morning,  going 
to  bed  at  night.  The  stars,  the  winds,  hunger,  thirst, 
the  joy  of  playing  or  of  idly  musing. 

In  Evansville  I  was  just  beginning  to  come  out  of  the 
dream  period  which  held  for  me  between  the  years  of 
seven  and  eleven.  The  significance  of  necessity  and  effort 
were  for  the  first  time  beginning  to  suggest  themselves. 
Still,  I  was  not  awake,  only  vaguely  disturbed  at  times, 
like  a  silky,  shimmery  sea,  faintly  touched  by  vagrom 
winds.  The  gales  and  storms  were  to  come  fast  enough. 
I  was  really  not  old  enough  to  understand  all  or  even  any 
of  the  troublesome  conditions  affecting  our  family.  Like 
my  companionable  brother  and  sister,  I  was  too  young, 
undaunted,  hopeful.  Sometimes,  in  my  dreams,  a  faint 
suggestion  of  my  mood  at  the  time  comes  back,  and  then 
I  know  how  I  have  changed — the  very  chemistry  of  me. 
I  do  not  respond  now  as  I  did  then,  or  at  any  rate,  I 
think  not. 

As  we  neared  the  city  we  could  see  the  ground  elevating 
itself  in  the  distance,  and  soon  we  were  riding  along  a 
ridge  or  elevated  highroad,  suggestively  alive  with  traffic 
and  dotted  with  houses. 

Evansviile  is  a  southern  city,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 

454 


EVANSVILLE  455 

it  is  Indiana,  and  has  all  the  characteristic  marks  of  a 
southern  city — a  hot,  drowsy,  almost  enervating  summer, 
an  early  spring,  a  mild  winter,  a  long,  agreeable  autumn. 
Snow  falls  but  rarely  and  does  not  endure  long.  Darkies 
abound,  whole  sections  of  them,  and  work  on  the  levee, 
the  railroad,  and  at  scores  of  tasks  given  over  to  whites 
in  the  north.  You  see  them  ambling  about  carrying  pack 
ages,  washing  windows,  driving  trucks  and  autos,  waiting 
on  table.  It  is  as  though  the  extreme  south  had  reached 
up  and  just  touched  this  projecting  section  of  Indiana. 

Again,  it  is  a  German  city,  strangely  enough,  a  city  to 
which  thousands  of  the  best  type  of  German  have  mi 
grated.  Despite  the  fact  that  Vincennes  and  Terre  Haute 
were  originally  French,  and  then  English,  except  for 
small  sections  through  here,  the  German  seems  to  pre 
dominate.  We  saw  many  German  farmers,  the  Ameri 
canized  type,  coming  up  from  Terre  Haute,  and  here  in 
Evansville  German  names  abounded.  It  was  as  true  of 
my  days  as  a  boy  here  as  it  is  now — even  more  so,  I 
believe.  There  are  a  number  of  purely  German  Catholic 
or  Lutheran  churches  controlled  by  Bavarian  priests  or 
ministers. 

Again  it  is  a  distinctly  river  type  of  town,  with  that 
floating  population  of  river  squatters — you  can  always 
tell  them — drifting  about.  I  saw  a  dozen  in  the  little 
while  I  was  there,  river  nomads  or  gypsies  bustling  about, 
dark,  sallow,  small,  rugged.  I  have  seen  them  at  St. 
Louis,  at  Memphis,  in  Savannah,  where  the  boats  come 
up  from  the  sea  and  down  from  Augusta.  I  can  always 
tell  them. 

Once  inside  the  city,  I  was  interested  to  note  that  most 
cities,  like  people,  retain  their  characteristics  perma 
nently.  Thus  in  my  day,  Evansville  was  already  noted 
as  a  furniture  manufacturing  city.  Plainly  it  was  so  still. 
In  half  a  dozen  blocks  we  passed  as  many  large  furniture 
companies,  all  their  windows  open  and  the  whir  and  drone 
of  their  wheels  and  saws  and  planes  pouring  forth  a 
happy  melody.  Again,  it  was  already  at  that  time  es 
tablishing  a  reputation  for  the  manufacture  of  cheap  pot- 


456  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

tery;  and  here,  to  our  left,  was  a  pottery  crowded  in 
among  other  things,  not  large,  but  still  a  pottery.  If 
there  was  one,  we  might  expect  others. 

At  the  edge  of  the  town,  making  its  way  through  a 
notable  gorge,  was  Pigeon  Creek,  a  stream  in  which  Ed, 
Al  and  I  had  often  bathed  and  fished,  and  to  the  shore 
of  which  we  had  been  led,  on  divers  occasions,  by  a  stout 
German  Catholic  priest,  or  three  or  four  of  them,  giving 
an  annual  or  semiannual  picnic.  The  fact  that  the  land 
rises  at  this  section  was  probably  what  attracted  the  first 
settlers  here,  and  gives  to  this  creek  and  the  heart  of  the 
city  a  picturesque  and  somewhat  differentiated  character. 

Not  far  from  the  center  of  the  city,  in  a  region  which 
I  once  considered  very  remote,  we  passed  the  double- 
steepled  church  of  St.  Anthony,  an  institution  which,  be 
cause  I  was  taken  to  its  dedication  by  my  father,  I  had 
retained  in  memory  as  something  imposing.  It  was  not 
at  all — a  rather  commonplace  church  in  red  brick  and 
white  stone,  such  as  any  carpenter  and  builder  of  Teu 
tonic  extraction  might  design  and  execute.  A  little  far 
ther  on,  facing  my  much  beloved  Vine  Street,  where  stood 
Holy  Trinity  Catholic  Church  and  School,  and  along 
which,  morning  and  evening,  I  used  to  walk,  I  discovered 
the  Vanderburg  County  Court  House,  filling  a  space  of 
ground  which  had  once  been  our  public  school  play 
ground.  It  was  very  large,  very  florate,  and  very  like 
every  other  court  house  in  America. 

Friends,  why  is  it  that  American  architects  can  design 
nothing  different — or  is  it  that  our  splendidly  free  and 
unconventional  people  will  not  permit  them?  I  some 
times  feel  that  there  could  not  exist  a  more  dull  witted 
nation  architecturally  than  we  are.  In  so  far  as  intel 
ligence  is  supposed  to  manifest  itself  in  the  matter  of 
taste,  we  give  no  evidence  of  having  any — positively 
none.  Our  ratiocinations  are  of  the  flock,  herd  or  school 
variety.  We  run  with  the  pack.  Some  mountebank 
Simon  in  art,  literature,  politics,  architecture,  cries 
"thumbs  up,"  and  up  goes  every  blessed  thumb  from 
the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  Then  some  other  pseudo- 


EVANSVILLE  457 

ratiocinating  ass  calls  "thumbs  down,"  and  down  go 
all  thumbs — not  a  few,  but  all.  Let  a  shyster  moralist 
cry  that  Shakespeare  is  immoral  and  his  plays  are  at  once 
barred  from  all  the  schools  of  a  dozen  states.  Let  a 
quack  nostrum  peddling  zany  declare  that  the  young  must 
not  be  contaminated,  and  out  go  all  the  works  of  Mon- 
tagne,  Ibsen,  Hauptmann,  Balzac,  on  the  ground,  for 
sooth,  that  they  will  injure  the  young.  Save  the  sixteen 
year  old  girl,  if  you  must  make  mushheads  and  loons, 
absolute  naturals,  of  every  citizen  from  ocean  to  ocean ! 

I  despair,  really.  I  call  for  water  and  wash  my  hands 
A  land  with  such  tendencies  can  scarcely  be  saved,  unless 
it  be  by  disaster.  We  need  to  be  tried  by  fire  or  born 
again.  We  do  not  grasp  the  first  principles  of  intellec 
tual  progress. 

But  our  breakfast!  Our  breakfast!  Before  getting  it 
I  had  to  take  Franklin  to  view  the  Ohio  River  from 
Water  Street  (I  do  believe  they  have  changed  the  name 
to  Riverside  Drive,  since  New  York  has  one)  for  I  could 
not  rest  until  he  had  seen  one  of  the  most  striking  Ameri 
can  river  scenes  of  which  I  know  anything.  I  know  how 
the  Hudson  joins  the  ocean  at  New  York,  the  Missouri 
the  Mississippi  at  St.  Louis,  the  Moselle  the  Rhine,  at 
Coblenz,  the  New  and  Big  Kanawha  in  the  picturesque 
mountains  of  West  Virginia,  and  the  Alleghany  the  Mo- 
nongahela  to  make  the  Ohio  in  Pittsburg — but  this  sweep 
of  the  Ohio,  coming  up  from  the  South  and  turning  im 
mediately  south  again  in  a  mighty  elbow  which  pushes  at 
the  low  hill  on  which  the  city  stands,  is  tremendous.  You 
know  this  is  a  mighty  river,  bearing  the  muddy  waters  of 
half  a  continent,  by  merely  looking  at  it.  It  speaks  for 
itself. 

Standing  on  this  fronting  street  of  this  purely  commer 
cial  city,  whose  sloping  levee  sinks  to  the  water's  edge, 
you  see  it  coming,  miles  and  miles  away,  this  vast  body 
of  water;  and  turning,  you  see  it  disappearing  around  a 
lowland,  over  whose  few  weak  and  yellow  trees  the  water 
frequently  passes.  In  high  water,  whole  towns  and  val 
leys  fall  before  it.  Houses  and  cabins  go  by  on  its  flood. 


458  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

On  it  ride  those  picturesque  sternwheelers,  relics  of  an 
older  order  of  navigation,  and  here  on  this  bright  August 
morning  were  several  anchored  at  our  feet.  They  were 
fastened  to  floating  wharves,  chained  to  the  shore.  On 
the  long,  downward  slope  of  cobble  stones  were  lying 
boxes  and  bales,  the  evidence  of  a  rive^  traffic  that  no 
inimical  railroad  management  can  utterly  kill.  A  river 
capable  of  bearing  almost  all  the  slow  freight  of  a  half 
score  of  states  is  left  to  distribute  the  minor  shipments  of 
perhaps  four  or  five.  Franklin  and  Bert  were  struck  with 
it,  which  pleased  me  greatly,  for  it  is  pleasant  to  bring 
another  to  a  great  view.  They  exclaimed  over  its  scope 
and  beauty. 

Then  we  went  looking  for  a  restaurant.  Although  the 
killing  of  game  was  still  out  of  season,  we  found  one 
where  broiled  squirrels  were  being  offered  for  the  humble 
sum  of  sixty  cents.  We  feasted.  Our  conservative  chauf 
feur  declared,  as  we  sat  down,  that  he  did  not  care  for 
anything  much,  and  then  ordered  a  steak,  three  eggs,  a 
pot  of  coffee,  a  bowl  of  wheatena,  muffins  and  hashed 
brown  potatoes,  topped  off  with  a  light  plate  of  waffles 
and  maple  syrup. 

uBert,"  exclaimed  Franklin,  "you  really  aren't  as 
strong  as  you  might  be  this  morning.  You  must  look 
after  yourself." 

He  scarcely  heard.  Lost  in  a  sea  of  provender,  he 
toiled  on,  an  honest  driver  worthy  of  his  hire. 

And  here  it  was  that  the  question  of  muskmelons  once 
more  arose — this  time  to  plague  me — melons  which,  as 
we  have  seen,  were  as  plentiful  as  manna  in  the  desert. 

"Now,"  Franklin  observed  with  unction  as  we  sat 
down,  "I'm  going  to  have  another  muskmelon." 

"Right,"  I  congratulated  him,  with  the  air  of  a  gener 
ous  host,  "now's  the  time." 

"Give  me  a  nice  large,  cold  muskmelon/'  he  observed 
to  the  darky  who  now  appeared,  napkin  on  arm. 

"Sorry,  boss,"  replied  that  worthy,  "we  ain't  got  no 
mushmelers  dis  mawnin.  Dey  ain't  none  to  be  had  in  de 
maaket." 


i 


'>~ 


THE    OHIO    AT    EVANSVILLE 


EVANSVILLE  459 

"What's  that?"  I  demanded,  looking  up  and  getting 
nervous,  for  we  were  in  the  very  best  restaurant  the  city 
afforded.  "No  muskmelons!  What  are  you  talking 
about?  We  saw  fields  of  them — miles  of  them — between 
here  and  Vincennes  and  Sullivan." 

"Da's  right,  boss.  Da's  where  dey  grows.  You  see 
'um  dere  all  right.  But  dey  don't  allus  bring  'um  down 
here.  Dis  ain't  no  maaket.  Dey  go  noth  and  east — to 
New  Yawk  and  Chicago.  Da's  what  it  is." 

"You  mean  to  say  you  can't  get  me  a  single  melon?" 
queried  Franklin  feebly,  a  distinct  note  of  reproach  in  his 
voice.  He  even  glanced  my  way. 

"Sorry,  boss.  If  dey  wuz  to  be  had,  we'd  have  'um. 
Yessir — dis  is  de  place.  We  cain't  git  'um — da's  it." 

Franklin  turned  upon  me  coldly. 

"That's  what  comes  of  not  eating  all  that  I  wanted  to 
when  I  wanted  to.  Hang  it  all." 

"Franklin,"  I  said.  "I  am  stricken  to  the  earth.  I 
crawl  before  you.  Here  is  dust  and  here  are  ashes."  I 
gesticulated  with  my  arms.  "If  I  had  thought  for  one 
moment " 

"And  all  those  fine  melons  up  there!" 

"I  agree,"  I  said. 

He  buried  his  face  in  the  bill  of  fare  and  paid  no  at 
tention  to  me.  Only  Bert's  declining  state  of  health  re 
stored  him,  eventually,  and  we  left  quite  cheerful. 

Only  a  block  or  two  from  our  restaurant  was  the  St. 
George  Hotel,  my  brother's  resort,  unchanged  and  as 
old  fashioned  as  ever,  white,  with  green  lattices,  rocking- 
chairs  out  in  front,  an  airy,  restful,  summery  look  about 
it.  How,  once  upon  a  time,  he  loved  to  disport  himself 
here  with  all  the  smart  idlers  of  the  town!  I  can  see  him 
yet,  clothed  to  perfection,  happy  in  his  youth,  health  and 
new  found  honors,  such  as  they  were.  Then  came  Holy 
Trinity  (church  and  school),  at  Third  and  Vine,  an 
absolutely  unchanged  institution.  It  had  shrunk  and  lost 
quality,  as  had  everything  else  nearly  with  which  I  had 
been  connected.  The  school  fence,  the  principal's  red 


460  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

brick  house  at  the  back  (how  I  used  to  dread  it),  the 
church  next  door,  with  the  rear  passage  by  which,  when 
we  were  extra  good,  we  went  to  receive  colored  picture 
cards  of  the  saints  or  Jesus  or  Mary,  and  when  we  were 
bad — to  be  warned  by  the  priest. 

The  latter  adventure  was  terrible.  It  had  never  be 
fallen  me,  but  other  boys  had  experienced  it. 

I  cannot  possibly  convey  to  you,  I  fear,  how  very  defi 
nitely  this  particular  school  and  church  impressed  me  at 
the  time.  Although  I  had  started  in  several  schools,  this 
was  really  my  first.  By  this  time  my  mother  was  begin 
ning  to  doubt  the  efficacy  of  Catholic  schools  in  general 
(how  they  would  have  condemned  her  for  that!),  but  as 
yet  she  was  not  quite  positive  enough  in  her  own  mind  to 
insist  on  a  change.  When  I  found  it  was  another  Cath 
olic  school  I  was  to  attend  I  was  very  downhearted.  I 
was  terrorized  by  the  curriculum,  the  admixture  of  priests, 
nuns  and  one  bewhiskered  Herr  Professor,  very  young 
and  as  he  seemed  to  me  very  terrible,  a  veritable  ogre, 
who  ruled  the  principal  school  room  here.  Really  he  was 
a  most  amazing  person  in  his  way.  He  had  blazing  eyes, 
heavy  black  eyebrows,  black  hair,  a  full  black  beard,  and 
he  walked  with  a  dynamic  stride  which,  as  it  seemed  to 
me,  was  sufficient  to  shake  the  earth.  He  controlled  the 
principal  or  highest  grade,  and  I,  now  eleven  years  of  age 
and  with  a  tendency  to  read  a  little  of  everything,  was 
deemed  fit  to  be  put  there — why  I  never  can  tell. 

Oh,  those  two  terrible  years !  The  best  I  can  say  for 
them  or  the  worst  is  this,  that  outside  the  school  and  at 
home  was  heaven;  inside  was  hell.  This  young  professor 
had  the  German  idea  of  stern,  vigorous  control;  in  which 
he  was  supported  by  the  parish  rector.  He  whipped  boys 
vigorously,  and  possibly  for  the  type  of  youth  under  him 
this  was  just  the  thing.  They  were  unquestionably  a 
tough,  thick-bottomed  lot,  and  they  made  my  life  a  night 
mare  into  the  bargain.  It  seems  to  me  now  as  I  look 
back  on  it  that  I  learned  nothing  at  all,  not  even  catechism. 
The  school  rooms  were  always  being  prowled  over  by 
the  rector  and  various  nuns  and  sisters  superior,  whose 


EVANSVILLE  461 

sole  concern  seemed  to  be  that  we  should  learn  our  cate 
chism  and  be  "graduated,"  at  twelve  years  of  age, 
whether  we  knew  anything  or  not.  Think  of  it!  I  am 
not  grossly  lying  or  exaggerating  about  the  Catholic 
Church  and  its  methods.  I  am  telling  you  what  I  felt, 
saw,  endured. 

During  these  two  years,  as  it  seems  to  me,  I  never 
learned  anything  about  anything.  There  was  a  "Bible 
history"  there  which  entertained  me  so  much  that  I  read 
in  it  constantly,  to  the  neglect  of  nearly  everything  else; 
and  some  of  the  boys  brought  "Diamond  Dick"  or  its 
that  day  equivalent,  and  these  we  read  under  the  seats,  I 
among  others,  though  I  liked  my  "Bible  history"  and  my 
geography  (such  as  it  was)  better.  On  several  occasions 
I  had  my  hands  severely  marked  by  a  ruler,  wielded  by 
the  Herr  Professor  Falk — great  red  welts  put  across 
both  my  palms,  because  I  whispered  or  laughed  or  did  not 
pay  attention.  And  once  he  pulled  my  ear  so  hard  that  I 
cried.  He  had  a  "habit"  (shall  I  call  it)  of  striking  dis 
orderly  boys  across  the  cheek  so  hard  and  so  fiercely  that 
their  faces  blazed  for  an  hour;  or  of  seizing  them,  laying 
them  over  a  bench  and  beating  them  with  a  short  rawhide 
whip.  Once  I  saw  a  boy  whom  he  intended  so  to  whip 
turn  on  him,  strike  him  across  the  face,  and  run  and  jump 
out  the  window  to  the  ground,  say  seven  feet  below.  To 
me,  at  that  time,  with  my  viewpoint  on  life,  it  was  dread 
ful.  My  heart  used  to  beat  so  I  thought  I  would  faint, 
and  I  lived  in  constant  dread  lest  I  be  seized  and  handled 
in  the  same  way.  Whenever  we  met  him  or  the  Catholic 
priest  or  any  other  dignitary  connected  with  the  school 
or  church  we  were  supposed  (compelled  is  the  right  word) 
to  take  off  our  hats.  And  if  it  was  a  priest  we  had  to 
say,  in  German,  "praised  be  Jesus  Christ,"  to  which  he 
would  reply  "Amen."  When  school  was  over,  at  four 
P.  M.,  I  would  creep  away,  haunted  by  the  thought  that 
on  the  morrow  I  would  have  to  return. 

Next  to  the  school  was  the  Church,  and  this  also  had 
been  more  or  less  of  a  torture  to  me,  though  not  quite 
so  much  so.  Here  the  Reverend  Anton  Dudenhausen  (I 


462  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

am  not  inventing  his  name)  was  supreme,  and  here  I 
made  my  first  confession  (no  real  sins  at  all,  really — 
fibbing  to  my  mother  was  the  worst) ,  and  received  my 
first  communion.  It  was  not  a  very  striking  church,  but 
then  with  its  gilt  altars,  the  candles,  the  stained  glass  win 
dows,  the  statues  and  stations  of  the  cross,  it  seemed  quite 
wonderful — only  I  was  always  afraid  of  it  all!  It  seemed 
alien  to  the  soul  of  me. 

Entering  it  this  day  I  found  it  just  the  same,  not  quite 
as  large  as  I  had  fancied  but  still  of  good  size  as  such 
churches  go. 

I  recalled  now  with  a  kind  of  half  pleasure,  half  pain, 
all  the  important  functions  that  went  on  in  this  church, 
the  celebrations  of  Easter,  Christmas  (the  whole  Christ- 
child  manger  fable  set  forth  life  size  and  surrounded  by 
candles),  Palm  Sunday,  Good  (or  Black)  Friday,  when 
everything  in  the  church  was  draped  in  black,  the  forty 
days  of  Lent,  and  the  masses,  high  or  low,  sung  on  every 
great  saint's  day  or  when  bishops  or  missionaries  (the 
latter  to  billysunday  us)  or  other  dignitaries  came  to  visit 
us.  My  father  was  always  much  wrought  up  about  these 
things  when  he  was  at  home  and  the  church  always  seemed 
to  blaze  with  banners,  candles  and  crowds  of  acolytes  in 
red  and  white  or  visiting  priests  in  white  and  gold.  I 
always  felt  as  though  heaven  must  be  an  amazing  and  dif 
ficult  place  to  reach  if  so  much  fuss  over  the  mere  trying 
for  it  here  was  necessary. 

Then,  in  addition,  there  were  the  collections,  commun 
ions,  church  fairs,  picnics,  raffles — a  long  line  of  amazing 
events,  the  chief  importance  of  which  was,  as  it  seemed 
to  me,  the  getting  of  money  for  the  church.  Certainly 
the  Catholics  know  how  to  keep  their  communicants  busy, 
and  even  worried.  My  recollection  of  school  and  church 
life  here  is  one  confused  jumble  of  masses,  funerals,  pro 
cessions,  lessons  in  catechism,  the  fierce  beating  of  recal 
citrant  pupils,  instructions  preparatory  to  my  first  confes 
sion  and  communion,  the  meeting  of  huge  dull  sodalities 
or  church  societies  with  endless  banners  and  emblems — 


EVANSVILLE  463 

(the  men  a  poor  type  of  workingmen) — and  then  march 
ing  off  somewhere  to  funerals,  picnics  and  the  like  out  of 
the  school  or  church  yard. 

Inside  (and  these  were  partly  what  I  was  coming  to 
see  today)  were  the  confessional,  where  I  once  told  my 
sins  to  the  Reverend  Anton,  and  the  altar  rail  and  the 
altar,  where  once  I  had  been  received  in  Holy  Communion 
and  was  confirmed  by  the  Bishop,  sitting  on  a  high  throne 
and  arrayed  in  golden  canonicals  of  the  church.  I  can 
see  him  now — a  pale,  severe  German,  with  a  fine  nose  and 
hard  blue  eyes.  I  can  feel  his  cool  fingers  anointing  my 
forehead.  Think  of  the  influence  of  such  formulas  and 
all  gorgeous  flummery  on  the  average  mind !  Is  it  any 
wonder  that  so  many  succumb  permanently  to  theories 
and  isms  so  gloriously  arrayed?  The  wonder  to  me  is 
that  any  child  should  ever  be  able  to  throw  off  the  op 
pressive  weight — the  binding  chains  thus  riveted  on  him. 

Today,  because  it  was  so  near  September,  they  were 
cleaning  the  schoolrooms  and  preparing  them  for  a  new 
batch  of  victims.  Think  of  the  dull  functioning  of  dogma, 
century  after  century,  age  after  age.  How  many  mil 
lions  and  billions  have  been  led — shunted  along  dogmatic 
runways  from  the  dark  into  the  dark  again.  They  do  not 
fell  them  with  an  axe  as  at  the  stockyards,  nor  open  their 
veins  with  a  knife  as  befalls  the  squealing  swine,  but  they 
fell  and  bleed  them  just  the  same.  I  am  not  ranting 
against  Catholicism  alone.  As  much  may  be  said  of  Mo 
hammedanism,  Confucianism,  Shintoism,  Brahmanism, 
Buddhism — the  Methodist,  Presbyterian,  Baptist  yokes. 
It  is  possible  that  for  the  latter  it  may  be  said  that  the 
chains  are  not  so  difficult  to  break.  I  don't  know.  But 
here  they  come,  endless  billions;  and  at  the  gates  dogma, 
ignorance,  vice,  cruelty  seize  them  and  clamp  this  or  that 
band  about  their  brains  or  their  feet.  Then  hobbled,  or 
hamstrung,  they  are  turned  loose,  to  think,  to  grow  if 
possible.  As  well  ask  of  a  eunuch  to  procreate,  or  of  an 
ox  to  charge.  The  incentive  to  discover  is  gone. 

Says  the  dogmatist,  "See,  this  is  the  manner  of  it.     If 


464  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

you  dare  to  think  otherwise,  you  are  damned.    Your  soul 
will  grill  in  hell — and  here  is  the  nature  of  that  hell." 

Poor  life !    I  wonder  that  ever  an  Athens  came  to  pass 
or  a  Rome  arose,  to  have  so  glorious  a  fall ! 


CHAPTER    LVII 

THE   BACKWOODS   OF   INDIANA 

STOPPING  to  look  at  the  old  school  door  I  went  in.  I 
recalled  how,  once  upon  a  time,  when  we  were  first  start 
ing  to  school  here,  we  tried  to  induce  Ed  to  enter,  he  being 
the  youngest  and  very  shy  as  to  education.  But  he  refused 
to  go  and  ran  back  home.  The  next  day  my  sister  Sylvia 
and  I  and  Tillie  took  him,  but  at  the  gate  he  once  more 
balked  and  refused  to  enter.  It  was  a  dreadful  situation, 
for  already  we  others  had  found  the  discipline  here  to 
be  very  stern.  Perhaps  it  was  Ed's  subconscious  realiza 
tion  of  what  was  about  to  be  done  to  his  soul  that  terrified 
him.  At  any  rate,  when  pressed  to  come  he  cried  and 
even  screamed,  making  such  an  uproar  that  that  same 
Herr  Professor  Ludwig  Falk,  ogreific  soul  that  he  was, 
came  rushing  out,  grabbed  him,  and  carried  him,  squall 
ing,  within.  For  a  time  he  was  not  to  be  dealt  with  even 
there,  but  finding  eventually  that  no  one  harmed  him, 
he  sat  down  and  from  that  day  to  the  time  he  left,  two 
years  later,  learned  nothing  at  all,  not  even  his  catechism 
— for  which  same  I  am  truly  grateful.  But  the  formalism 
of  the  church  caught  him,  its  gold  and  colors  and  thun- 
derings  as  to  hell,  and  now  he  is  as  good  a  Catholic  as 
any  and  as  fearful  of  terrific  fires. 

Once  inside,  in  the  same  room  in  which  I  used  to  sit 
and  fear  for  my  life  and  learned  nothing,  I  encountered  a 
black-garbed  sister,  her  beads  dangling  at  her  waist,  the 
same  kind  that  used  to  overawe  and  terrify  me  in  my 
youth.  Because  she  looked  at  me  curiously  I  bowed  and 
then  explained:  "Once  I  went  to  school  here — over 
thirty  years  ago."  (I  could  see  she  assumed  I  was  still 
a  good  Catholic.)  I  went  on:  "I  sat  in  this  seat  here. 
It  was  the  third  row  from  the  wall,  about  six  seats  back. 

465 


466  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

A  Mr.  Falk  was  my  teacher  here  then,  and  a  Father 
Dudenhausen  the  pastor." 

"Yes,"  she  said  simply,  "I  have  heard  of  Mr.  Falk— 
but  he  has  not  been  here  for  years.  He  left  many  years 
ago.  Father  Dudenhausen  died  fifteen  years  ago." 

"Yes,  so  I  heard,"  I  replied,  "and  Father  Livermann 
— do  you  know  of  him?" 

"No,  I  never  heard  of  him,  but  if  you  will  go  to  the 
pastor  in  the  house  back  of  the  church,  he  can  tell  you. 
He  would  be  pleased  to  see  someone  who  had  been  here  so 
long  ago." 

I  smiled.  I  was  only  fortyfour,  but  how  old  I  really 
was,  after  all. 

Then  Franklin  came  in  with  his  camera. 

"Do  you  mind  if  we  take  a  picture  of  it?"  I  asked. 

"Not  at  all,"  she  replied.    "It  would  be  nice." 

"How  would  you  like  to  sit  at  the  desk  there?  I  have 
sat  in  rooms  where  a  sister  was  my  teacher." 

"Oh,  I  think  I'd  better  not,"  she  replied.  "I'm  not 
sure  if  it's  permissible.  I " 

Just  then  another,  an  older,  nun  came  in,  and  she  put 
the  matter  to  her  in  soft  whispers. 

She  was  dying  to  do  it.     I  could  see  that. 

"Well,  the  rules,"  I  heard  the  other  say  aloud. 

There  was  more  whispering,  and  then  she  mounted  the 
platform  and  turned  her  head  sidewise  so  that  her  bonnet 
concealed  her  face.  Franklin  snapped  her. 

"Would  you  like  a  copy  of  it,  if  it  turns  out  well?"  I 
inquired. 

"Oh,  it  would  please  me  very  much." 

"And  your  name?" 

"Sister  Mary  Caroline — 316  Vine  Street." 

I  took  one  last  look  and  went  out. 

Outside  was  the  yard  in  which  we  had  always  played. 
As  an  eleven  and  twelve-year-old  boy,  this  had  seemed  a 
dreadful  place  to  me — one  of  brawls  and  arguments.  I 
was  not  a  fighter  nor  tough  enough  physically  to  share  in 
the  rough  sports  that  went  on  here — leap  frog,  snap  the 
whip,  and  bean  bag.  I  did,  but  I  was  always  getting 


THE  BACKWOODS  OF  INDIANA 


467 


J 


the  worst  of  it  and  in  addition,  for  some  unaccountable 
reason,  I  was  always  finding  myself  involved  in  fights. 
Suddenly,  out  of  a  clear  sky,  without  my  having  said  a 
word  to  anybody,  I  would  be  the  object  of  some  bucky 
little  American's  or  German-American's  rage  or  opposi 
tion — a  fist  would  be  shaken  in  my  face.  I  would  be  told 
to  uwait  till  after  school."  After  school  a  crowd  would 
gather.  I  would  be  led,  as  it  were,  like  a  lamb  to  the 
slaughter.  The  crowd  would  divide  into  "sides."  I 
would  be  urged  to  take  off  my  coat  and  "go  for  him." 
But  I  was  never  much  on  the  go.  Somehow  I  did  not 
know  how  to  fight;  even  when  at  times  I  thought  I  ought  I 
to,  or  might  win.  A  chance  blow  once  won  me  a  victory  \ 
and  great  applause.  I  knocked  my  opponent  flat — and  all 
the  fight  out  of  him  apparently — but  quite  by  accident.  I  j 
hadn't  intended  to  at  all.  At  other  times  I  received  un 
deserved  beatings,  which  left  me  wondering  what  I  had 
done  and  why  life  was  so  fierce.  It  made  me  shy  of  other 
boys.  I  kept  out  of  trouble  by  keeping  away  from  them, 
wandering  about  by  myself  and  rejoicing  in  the  beauty 
of  life  as  a  whole — its  splendid,  spectacular  reality. 

Inside  the  Church  was  nothing  to  disturb  me  or  cause^ 
me  to  alter  my  point  of  view.  It  was  just  the  same. 
There  was  the  Reverend  Anton  Dudenhausen's  confes 
sional,  front,  left;  and  here  were  all  the  altars,  statues, 
stations,  windows,  just  as  I  had  left  them.  I  looked  up 
at  the  organ  loft  where  I  had  pumped  air  for  the  organ, 
weekdays  and  Sundays.  It  was  apparently  as  I  had  left 
it.  Kind  heaven,  I  exclaimed  to  myself,  standing  in  here, 
what  a  farce  life  is  anyhow.  Here  is  this  same  Church, 
from  the  errors  and  terrors  of  which  I  managed  by  such 
hard  straits  of  thought  to  escape,  and  here  is  a  city  and  a 
school  pouring  more  and  more  victims  into  its  jaws  and 
maw  year  after  year,  year  after  year!  Supposing  one 
does  escape?  Think  of  all  the  others!  And  if  this  were 
the  middle  ages  I  would  not  even  dare  write  this.  They 
would  burn  me  at  the  stake.  As  it  is,  if  any  attention  is 
paid  to  me  at  all  I  will  be  denounced  as  a  liar,  a  maligner, 
a  person  with  a  diseased  brain,  as  one  of  my  dear  rela- 


468  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

tives  (Catholic  of  course)  condescended  to  remark.  Yet 
at  my  elbow  as  I  write  stands  the  Encyclopedia  Britan- 
nica  and  Van  Ranke's  "History  of  The  Papacy,"  and  a 
life  of  Torquemada,  to  say  nothing  of  scores  of  volumes 
demolishing  the  folly  of  religious  dogma  completely — 
and  yet — and  yet — the  poor  victims  of  such  unbelievable 
tommyrot  as  this  would  be  among  the  first  to  destroy  me 
and  these  things — the  very  first. 

A  little  way  down  Vine  Street  from  the  school  was  the 
old  foundry,  now  enlarged  and  doing  a  good  business  in 
old  metal  melting  and  recasting.  We  turned  into  Main, 
where  it  joined  Vine,  and  there  a  block  away  was  Blounts 
Iron  Works  unchanged.  Thirtythree  years  had  not 
made  a  particle  of  difference.  The  walls  were  as  red  and 
dusty,  the  noise  as  great.  I  went  along  the  windows,  look 
ing  in,  and  so  interesting  were  the  processes  that  Franklin 
joined  me.  In  exactly  the  same  positions,  at  the  same 
windows,  were  seemingly  the  same  men  at  the  exact  ma 
chines,  heating,  welding,  shaping  and  grinding  shares.  It 
was  astonishing.  I  felt  young  for  the  moment.  At  these 
windows,  with  my  books  under  my  arm,  I  had  always 
lingered  as  long  as  I  dared,  only  I  recalled  now  that  my 
eyes  then  came  just  above  the  window  sills,  whereas  now 
the  sills  touched  my  middle  chest.  It  was  almost  too 
good  to  be  true. 

And  there,  up  Main  Street,  quite  plainly  was  the  rail 
road  station  we  entered  the  night  we  came  from  Sullivan, 
and  whence  we  departed  two  years  later  for  Chicago  and 
Warsaw — only  it  had  been  rebuilt.  It  was  a  newer,  a 
grander  affair — a  Union  Station,  no  less.  Then  we  had 
slipped  in,  my  mother  and  her  helpless  brood,  and  were 
met  by  Paul  and  put  on  a  little  one  horse  street  car  which 
had  no  conductor  at  the  rear  but  only  a  small  step,  and  in 
which,  after  depositing  coins  in  a  case  where  a  light  was, 
we  rode  a  few  blocks  to  Franklin  Street  I  recalled  the 
night,  the  stars,  the  clang  of  summer  engine  bells,  the 
city's  confusing  lights.  It  seemed  so  wonderful,  this  city; 
after  Sullivan,  so  great.  It  had  forty  or  fifty  thousand 
people  then  (seventyfive  thousand  today).  On  the  train, 


. 


•   . 


A    BEAUTIFUL   TREE   ON   A   VILE    ROAD 
Warwick  County,  Indiana 


THE  BACKWOODS  OF  INDIANA         469 

as  we  came  in,  it  seemed  as  if  we  were  coming  into  fairy 
land. 

"Mister,"  I  said  to  a  passing  Southern  water  type,  a 
small,  gypsyish,  swarthy  little  man,  "can  you  tell  us  where 
Franklin  Street  is?" 

"Why,  sweetheart,  right  they  it  is — right  they  at  the 
conoh." 

The  eyes  poured  forth  a  volume  of  gentle  sunny  hu 
mor.  I  smiled  back.  It  was  like  being  handed  a  bouquet 
of  roses. 

We  turned  into  Franklin  Street  and  rode  such  a  little 
way — two  blocks  say.  The  house  was  easy  to  identify, 
even  though  the  number  had  now  been  made  1415.  It 
was  now  crowded  in  between  a  long  row  of  brick  and 
frame  houses,  of  better  construction,  and  the  neighbor 
hood  had  changed  entirely  in  physical  appearance  though 
not  in  atmosphere.  Formerly,  save  for  our  house,  all 
was  open  common  here.  You  could  see  from  our  house 
to  the  station  at  which  we  had  arrived — from  our  house 
to  the  interesting  potteries  which  I  still  hoped  to  find,  east 
or  toward  the  country.  You  could  see  north  to  the  woods 
and  an  outlying  Catholic  Orphan  Asylum. 

Now  all  that  was  changed.  It  was  all  filled  with 
houses.  Streets  that  in  my  time  had  not  even  been  platted 
now  ran  east  and  west  and  north  and  south.  Our  large 
yard  and  barn  were  gone.  The  house  had  no  lawn  at  all, 
or  just  a  tiny  scrap  in  front.  The  fine  commons  at  the 
back  where  all  the  neighborhood  boys  gathered  to  play 
ball,  circus,  top,  marbles,  was  solidly  built  over  with 
houses.  I  remembered  how  I  used  to  run,  kicking  my  bare 
toes  in  clover  blooms  in  the  summer.  Once  a  bee  stung 
me  and  I  sat  down  and  cried;  then  getting  no  aid,  I  made 
a  paste  of  mud  and  saliva  and  held  that  on — instructions 
from  big  Ed  Fisher,  one  of  our  neighborhood  gang.  I 
recalled  how  Ed  and  I  played  one  old  cat  here  with  Harry 
Trochee,  the  gypsy  trader's  son,  up  the  street,  and  how 
we  both  hated  to  have  to  run  up  the  street  to  Main  Street 
to  the  grocer's  or  butcher's  for  anything.  Here  I  could 
stand  and  see  the  steeple  of  Holy  Trinity,  clear  across  the 


470  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

city  at  Third  and  Pine,  and  hear  the  Angelus  tolled,  morn 
ing,  noon  and  night.  It  was  beautiful  to  me — I  have 
often  paused  to  listen — and  to  feel.  Across  the  common 
of  a  Saturday  I  have  wandered  to  the  potteries  to  look  in 
at  the  windows  at  so  many  interesting  things  that  were 
being  made. 

"Shall  we  stop?"  asked  Franklin,  as  we  neared  the 
door. 

"Please  don't.     I  don't  want  to  go  in." 

Some  little  children  were  playing  on  our  small  front 
porch. 

And  next  came  the  potteries  themselves,  over  in  the 
exact  region  where  they  should  have  been,  but  now  swol 
len  to  enormous  proportions.  The  buildings  extended  for 
blocks.  Hundreds,  if  not  thousands,  of  men  and  women 
must  have  been  at  work  here.  You  could  see  them  at  all 
the  windows,  turning  cups,  saucers,  plates,  bowls,  pitchers, 
tureens — thousands  in  a  day.  The  size  and  the  swing  of 
it  all  was  like  a  song.  We  got  out  and  wandered  about 
up  and  down  the  low  red  walls,  looking  at  windows  and 
doors,  seeing  the  thousands  upon  thousands  of  bits  of 
clay  being  shaped  into  the  forms  which  they  retain  for  a 
little  while  only  to  be  returned  to  their  native  nothingness 
again.  So  may  we  be  shaped  and  cast  back  broken — to 
be  used  some  day  for  something  else. 

"The  methods  have  changed,"  said  one  man,  talking 
to  me  through  a  window.  "Twenty  years  ago  a  lot  of  the 
work  was  still  done  by  hand,  but  now  we  do  it  all  by  ma 
chinery.  We  have  forms  like  this" — and  he  held  up  one. 
"You  see  we  put  just  so  much  clay  in  and  press  this  down 
and  that  makes  the  exact  thickness.  It  can't  be  more  or 
less.  I  make  a  hundred  and  twenty  plates  an  hour." 

He  made  twenty  while  we  looked  on. 

Another  man,  at  the  next  window,  was  putting  handles 
on  cups. 

After  this  there  was  nothing  of  interest  to  see,  so  we 
consulted  the  map  and  decided  that  our  best  plan  was  to 
go  first  to  Boonville  in  Warwick  County,  the  next  county 
east;  then  northeast  to  Huntingberg  and  Jasper  in  Dubois 


THE  BACKWOODS  OF  INDIANA         471 

County,  and  then  still  northeast  through  Kellerville  and 
Norton  into  Orange  County,  and  so  reach  French  Lick 
and  West  Baden. 

Neither  of  us  had  ever  been  there.  It  was  of  some 
slight  interest  to  me  as  being  famous — a  great  cure  and 
the  quondam  resort  of  my  brother  Paul,  who  was  fond  of 
places  of  this  kind.  Indeed,  he  was  a  kind  of  modern 
Falstaff,  roystering  with  drinkers  and  women  and  having 
a  gay  time  of  it  wherever  he  was — a  vigorous  animal  soul, 
with  a  world  of  sentiment  and  a  capacity  for  living  which 
was  the  admiration  and  the  marvel  of  all  beholders. 

So  we  were  off. 

In  so  far  as  this  part  of  the  trip  was  concerned,  I  can 
truthfully  say  the  attraction  was  off.  There  was  still 
Bloomington,  my  one  year  university  town,  but  beside 
Warsaw  and  Terre  Haute  and  Sullivan  and  Evansville — 
how  it  paled !  Chicago  was  really  of  much  more  interest 
to  me,  the  Chicago  that  I  visited  between  Evansville  and 
Warsaw,  but  this  trip  did  not  include  that.  Besides,  I 
had  been  to  Chicago  so  often  since. 

We  followed  hot,  wet  bottom  lands  to  Boonville,  a 
poorer  town  even  than  Sullivan,  with  unpaved  streets  and 
a  skimpy  county  fair  not  to  be  compared  with  the  one  of 
Knox  County,  in  which  Vincennes  was  situated.  Then  we 
struck  northeast  through  a  region  where  the  roads  were 
so  bad  that  it  seemed  we  should  never  come  through  with 
the  car.  Water  puddles,  and  streams  even,  blocked  the 
way.  At  one  place  we  shot  over  a  bridge  the  far  end  of 
which  sank  as  we  crossed,  and  a  ditch  of  nine  feet  of  depth 
yawned  beside  the  track,  separated  by  but  one  foot  of 
earth !  Death  seemed  to  zip  close  to  my  ear  at  that  mo 
ment.  We  saw  poor  homes,  poor  stores,  wretched  farms, 
shabby,  almost  ragged  people.  At  one  town,  Selvin,  on 
the  road  to  Huntingberg,  a  pretty  country  girl  "tending" 
the  general  store  there  asked  us  if  we  were  coming  from 
Boonville,  and  when  we  said  yes,  asked  if  we  had  seen 
the  fair. 

"Yes,"  replied  Franklin. 

"It's  fine,  isn't  it?"  she  commented. 


472  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

"Yes,"  he  replied  gently. 

You  can  imagine  the  isolation  of  this  region  when  I  tell 
you  that  our  automobile  attracted  universal  attention; 
that  we  saw  only  one  other  between  Boonville  and  Hunt- 
ingberg;  that  dogs  and  horses  ran  away  frightened  at  the 
horn;  and  that  children  ran  out  to  see.  Tins  did  not  seem 
quite  possible. 

At  Holland,  however,  in  the  southwest  corner  of  Du- 
bois  County,  we  encountered  a  splendid  road,  smooth  and 
white,  along  which  we  tore.  Indeed,  this  whole  county 
proved  a  revelation,  for  whereas  the  two  preceding  ones 
were  poor,  wretched  even,  this  was  prosperous  and  de 
lightful  to  look  upon.  Great  meadows  of  emerald  were 
interspersed  with  splendid  forests  of  ash  and  beech.  One 
saw  sheep  and  Jersey  and  Holstein  cattle  in  the  fields,  and 
for  a  novelty,  new  for  me  in  America,  repeated  flocks  of 
snow  white  geese,  great  droves  of  them, — a  region,  no 
doubt,  given  to  feather  raising. 

Huntingberg  was  alive  and  clean — a  truly  handsome 
little  town  with  well  built  houses,  wide  streets,  attractive 
stores,  a  brisk,  businesslike  atmosphere.  It  was  really 
charming,  romantically  so.  Beyond  it  was  an  equally  fine 
road  leading  to  Jasper,  'the  county  seat.  On  this  we  en 
countered  a  beech  grove  so  noble  and  well  planned  that 
it  had  the  sanctity  and  aroma  of  a  great  cathedral. 
Through  the  columns  of  trees  one  could  see  the  sun  sink 
ing — a  great  red  ball  of  fire.  The  sky  was  sapphire  and 
the  air  cool.  Those  lowings  and  bleatings  and  callings 
and  tinklings  of  evening  were  just  beginning.  We  ran 
the  car  into  a  fence  pocket,  and  letting  down  the  bars  of 
a  gate  walked  into  this  great  hall.  I  was  deeply  im 
pressed — moved  really.  I  put  my  arms  behind  my  back 
and  gazed  aloft  into  the  silvery  branches.  I  laid  reverent 
hands  on  their  smooth,  silvery  trunks — and  my  cheek.  I 
almost  asked  them  to  bless  me — to  help  me  grow  strong, 
natural,  frank — all  that  a  struggling  mind  in  a  mystic 
world  should  become.  I  spoke  to  the  red  sun  in  the  West 
and  bade  it  adieu  for  another  night.  I  looked  into  the 
small  still  pools  of  water  to  be  found  here,  wherein  stars 


A    CATHEDRAL    OF    TREES 
Jasper,  Indiana 


THE  BACKWOODS  OF  INDIANA         473 

would  see  their  faces  latterly,  and  begged  of  all  wood 
sprites  and  water  nymphs,  nixies  and  pixies,  that  some 
day,  soon  perhaps,  they  would  make  me  one  in  their 
happy  councils  and  revels.  I  looked  up  through  the  trees 
to  the  sky,  and  told  myself  again,  as  I  do  each  day,  that 
life  is  good,  that  in  spite  of  contest  and  bitterness  and 
defeated  hopes, and  lost  ambitions  and  sickness  and  envy 
and  hate  and  death — still,  still,  there  is  this  wondrous 
spectacle  which,  though  it  may  have  no  part  or  lot  with 
us,  or  we  with  it,  yet  provides  all  we  know  of  life.  The 
sigh  of  winds,  the  lap  of  waters,  the  call  of  birds — all 
color,  fragrance,  yearning,  hope,  sweet  memory — of  what 
old  mysteries  are  these  compounded ! 

Jasper,  the  county  seat,  was  another  town  of  which  I 
most  heartily  approved.  It  was  beautiful,  like  the  rest  of 
this  striking  county.  The  court  house,  like  most  of  those 
in  this  region  and  elsewhere,  was  new,  but  in  this  instance 
built  with  considerable  taste  and  individuality — not  a 
slavish  copy — and  set  in  a  square  at  the  intersection  of 
four  wide  streets  on  a  slight  rise  of  ground,  so  that  com 
ing  townward  from  any  direction,  and  from  a  long  way 
off,  one  could  see  it  commanding  one  of  these  striking  ap 
proaches.  What  a  charming  place  in  which  to  grow  up,  I 
thought ! 

Again,  there  was  a  river  here,  that  selfsame  Patoka  of 
Princeton,  and  as  we  entered  from  the  south,  it  provided 
some  most  interesting  views,  sylvan  and  delicate.  Still 
once  more  there  was  a  church  here — St.  Joseph's  Roman 
Catholic — which  was  a  triumph  of  taste.  Most  Roman 
Catholic  Churches,  and  for  that  matter  every  other  de 
nominational  church  in  America,  have  enough  spent  on 
them  to  insure  originality  and  charm  in  design,  if  only 
taste  were  not  wanting — but  taste,  that  priceless,  inex 
pensive  thing,  is  rarely  ever  present.  They  build  and 
build,  slavish  copies  of  European  models,  usually  of  ca 
thedrals,  so  that  when  one  sees  an  original  design  it  is  like 
a  breath  of  fresh  air  entering  a  stuffy  room.  This  Church 
was  built  of  a  faintly  greenish  gray  stone,  and  possessed 


474  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

a  soaring,  yet  delicate  bell  tower  at  one  corner.  It  stood 
on  a  considerable  rise,  in  an  open  space  and  at  right 
angles  with  a  low  flat  brown  convent  or  school,  which 
gave  its  entrance  way  a  plaza-like  atmosphere.  But  for 
the  fact  that  it  was  late  and  we  were  in  a  hurry,  and  it 
was  locked,  we  would  have  entered,  but  we  would  have 
had  to  go  for  a  key. 


CHAPTER    LVIII 

FRENCH    LICK 

AFTER  passing  through  Jasper  and  Dubois  Counties, 
where  we  had  seen  more  good  automobiles,  good  roads 
and  brisk  life  than  we  had  since  the  very  best  sections  of 
northern  Indiana  and  Ohio,  our  luck  in  roads  left  off. 
Around  the  courthouse  square  at  Jasper  we  had  seen  ma 
chines  of  the  best  make,  and  parties  of  well  to  do  people 
driving;  but  on  our  road  to  Kellerville  and  Norton  and 
French  Lick  we  passed  nothing  but  rumbling  wagons  and 
some  few,  not  very  good,  cars. 

And  now  the  landscape  changed  rapidly.  I  had  al 
ways  heard  that  Brown  County,  east  of  Monroe  (the  seat 
of  our  state  university),  was  the  roughest  and  most  pic 
turesque  in  the  state,  containing  a  hill,  the  highest  in 
Indiana,  of  over  five  hundred  feet!  As  a  student  I  had 
walked  there  with  a  geologizing  party,  but  if  my  memory 
served  me  correctly,  it  did  not  compare  in  picturesque- 
ness  with  the  region  through  which  we  were  now  making 
our  way.  Heights  and  depths  are  variable  matters  any 
way,  and  the  impression  of  something  stupendous  or 
amazingly  precipitous  which  one  can  get  from  a  region  of 
comparatively  low  altitude  depends  on  the  arrangement 
of  its  miniature  gorges  and  crevasses.  Here  in  Orange 
County  I  had  an  impression  of  great  hills  and  deep  ra 
vines  and  steep  inclines  which  quite  equalled  anything  we 
had  seen.  It  suggested  the  vicinity  of  Stroudsburg  in 
Pennsylvania,  and  as  we  sped  along  there  were  sudden 
drops  down  which  we  ground  at  breakneck  speed,  which 
quite  took  my  breath  away.  It  was  a  true  and  beautiful 
mountain  country,  becabined,  lonely,  for  the  most  part 
bridgeless — and  such  roads !  We  bumped  and  jounced 
and  floundered  along.  Now  and  again  we  were  at  the 

475 


476  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

very  bottom  of  a  ravine,  with  lovely  misty  hills  rising 
sheer  above  us.  Again,  we  were  on  some  seeming  moun 
tain  side,  the  valleys  falling  sharply  away  from  the  road 
and  showing  some  rocky  rivulet  at  the  bottom.  More 
than  once  we  shot  the  machine  through  a  tumbling,  spark 
ling,  moonlit  stream. 

At  the  bottom  of  one  ravine  I  saw  a  light,  and  we  being 
very  uncertain  of  our  way,  I  climbed  out  at  the  gate  and 
went  up  under  some  vines  and  bushes  to  knock  at  the 
door.  Inside,  since  it  was  open,  I  beheld  a  quite  metro 
politan  interior — craftsman  furniture,  a  wall  of  well- 
built  shelves  loaded  with  books,  a  table  strewn  with  mag 
azines  and  papers,  and  the  room  lighted  by  a  silk  shaded 
lamp.  When  I  knocked  a  short,  stocky,  legal  looking 
youth  of  most  precise  manners  and  attire  and  a  large  pair 
of  horn  glasses  on  his  nose,  arose  from  a  small  secretary 
and  came  over. 

"French  Lick?"  I  inquired. 

"About  eighteen  miles,"  he  replied.  "You  are  on  the 
right  road." 

I  felt  quite  reduced.  I  had  expected  to  find  a  pictur 
esque,  ambling,  drawling  mountaineer. 

Between  bounces  and  jounces  and  "holding  back" 
against  declivities  to  which  Bert  seemed  amazingly  indif 
ferent,  I  sat  and  dreamed  over  those  moonlit  hills. 
What  a  possession  for  a  state  like  Indiana,  I  thought — a 
small,  quaint,  wonderful  Alpine  region  within  its  very 
center.  As  time  went  on  and  population  increased,  I 
thought,  this  would  afford  pleasure  and  recreation  to 
thousands,  perhaps  hundreds  of  thousands,  who  knows, 
who  could  not  afford  to  go  farther.  Plainly  it  had  already 
evinced  its  charm  to  the  world,  for  were  we  not  on  the 
very  outskirts  of  two  of  the  most  remarkable  curative 
spring  resorts  in  America,  if  not  in  the  world?  Who  had 
not  heard  of  French  Lick — West  Baden?  And  yet  when 
I  went  to  school  at  the  state  university,  these  places  had 
not  been  heard  of  locally,  let  alone  nationally. 

I  recall  a  long,  lanky  student  from  this  very  county 
who  was  studying  law  at  "our  college,"  who  told  me  of 


FRENCH  LICK  477 

French  Lick,  and  that  "a  lot  of  people  around  there 
thought  the  waters  were  good  for  rheumatism. "  I  ex 
pected,  somehow,  as  we  rode  along,  to  see  some  evidence 
in  the  way  of  improved  mountain  conditions — better 
houses,  more  of  them,  possibly — now  that  we  were  in 
the  vicinity  of  such  a  prosperous  resort,  but  not  a  sign  was 
there.  Ten  o'clock  came  and  then  eleven.  We  were  told 
that  we  were  within  nine  miles,  seven  miles,  four  miles, 
two  miles — still  no  houses  to  speak  of,  and  only  the  poor 
est  type  of  cabin.  At  one  mile  there  was  still  no  sign. 
Then  suddenly,  at  the  bend  of  a  road,  came  summer  cot 
tages  of  the  customary  resort  type,  a  street  of  them. 
Bright  lamps  appeared.  A  great  wall  of  cream  colored 
brick,  ablaze  with  lights,  arose  at  the  bottom  of  the 
ravine  into  which  we  were  descending.  I  was  sure  this 
was  the  principal  hotel.  Then  as  we  approached  gardens 
and  grounds  most  extensive  and  formal  in  character  ap 
peared,  and  in  their  depths,  to  the  left,  through  a  faint 
pearly  haze,  appeared  a  much  larger  and  much  more 
imposing  structure.  This  was  THE  hotel.  The  other  was 
an  annex  for  servants ! 

All  the  gaudy  luxury  of  a  Lausanne  or  Biarritz  resort 
was  here  in  evidence.  A  railroad  spur  adjoining  a  pri 
vate  hotel  station  contained  three  or  four  private  cars, 
idling  here  while  their  owners  rested.  A  darkened  Pull 
man  train  was  evidently  awaiting  some  particular  hour 
to  depart.  At  the  foot  of  a  long  iron  and  glass  awning, 
protecting  a  yellow  marble  staircase  of  exceedingly  florate 
design,  a  liveried  flunky  stood  waiting  to  open  automobile 
doors.  As  we  sped  up  he  greeted  us.  Various  black 
porters  pounced  on  our  bags  like  vultures.  We  were  es 
corted  through  a  marble  lobby  such  as  Arabian  romances 
once  dreamed  of  as  rare,  and  to  an  altar  like  desk,  where 
a  high  priest  of  American  profit  deigned  to  permit  us  to 
register.  We  were  assigned  rooms  (separate  quarters 
for  our  chauffeur)  at  six  dollars  the  day,  and  subsequently 
ushered  down  two  miles  of  hall  on  the  fifth  or  sixth  floor 
to  our  very  plain,  very  white,  but  tastefully  furnished 


478  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

rooms,  where  we  were  permitted  to  pay  the  various  slaves 
who  had  attended  us. 

"George,"  I  said  to  the  robustious  soul  who  carried  my 
bag,  "how  many  rooms  has  this  hotel?" 

"Eight  hundred,  suh,  Ah  believe." 

"And  how  many  miles  is  it  from  heA;e  to  the  dining- 
room?" 

"We  don't  serve  no  meals  aftah  nine  o'clock,  suh,  but 
Ah  expects  if  you  wanted  a  lil'  sumfin  sent  up  to  yo  room, 
de  chef  would  see  you  done  got  it." 

"No,  George,  I'm  afraid  of  these  chefs.  I  think  I'll 
go  out  instead.  Isn't  there  a  restaurant  around  here 
somewhere?" 

"Nothin'  as  you-all'd  like  to  patronize,  suh,  no  suh. 
Dey  is  one  restaurant.  It  keeps  open  most  all  night.  It's 
right  outside  de  grounds  here.  I  think  you  might  get  a 
lil'  sumfin  dayah.  Dey  has  a  kinda  pie  countah." 

"That's  it,  George,"  I  replied.  "That's  me.  A  plain, 
humble  pie  counter.  And  now  good  night  to  you, 
George." 

"Good  night,  suh." 

And  he  went  out  grinning. 

I  may  seem  to  be  exaggerating,  but  I  say  it  in  all  seri 
ousness.  These  enormous  American  watering  place  ho 
tels,  with  their  armies  of  servants,  heavy,  serious-faced 
guests,  solemn  state  diningrooms,  miles  of  halls  and  the 
like,  more  or  less  frighten  me.  They  are  so  enormous. 
Their  guests  are  so  stiff,  starchy,  captain-of-industry-like. 
And  they  are  so  often  (not  always)  accompanied  by  such 
pursy,  fussy,  heavily  bejeweled  or  besilked  and  velveted 
females,  whose  very  presence  seems  to  exude  a  kind  of 
opposition  to  or  contempt  for  simple  things,  which  puts 
me  on  tenter  hooks.  I  don't  seem  quite  to  belong.  I 
may  have  the  necessary  money  to  pay  for  all  and  sundry 
services  such  as  great  hostelries  provide — for  a  period 
anyhow — but  even  so,  I  still  feel  small.  I  look  about  me 
furtively  and  suspect  every  man  I  see  of  being  at  least  a 
millionaire.  I  feel  as  though  I  were  entirely  surrounded 
by  judges,  merchant  princes,  eminent  doctors,  lawyers, 


FRENCH    LICK 
The  Hotel  and  Fresh  Water  Spring 


FRENCH  LICK  479 

priests,  senators  and  presidents,  and  that  if  I  dare  say  a 
word,  some  one  might  cry — uThat  man!  Who  is  he, 
anyhow?  Put  him  out."  And  so,  as  I  say,  I  "kinda- 
sorta"  slip  along  and  never  make  any  more  noise  or  fuss 
or  show  than  I  have  to.  If  a  head  waiter  doesn't  put  me 
in  exactly  the  place  I  would  like  to  be,  or  the  room  clerk 
doesn't  give  me  just  the  room  I  would  like,  I  always  say, 
"Ah,  well,  I'm  just  a  writer,  and  perhaps  I'd  better  not 
say  anything.  They  might  put  me  out.  Bishops  and  doc 
tors  and  lawyers  ought  to  have  all  the  center  tables  or 

window  seats,  and  so "     It's  really  uncomfortable  to 

be  so  humble — just  nothing  at  all. 

But  notwithstanding  this  rather  tragic  state,  my  room 
was  a  good  one,  and  the  windows,  once  opened  to  the 
moonlight,  commanded  a  fine  view  of  the  grounds,  with 
the  walks,  spring  pavilions  and  artificial  grottoes  and 
flower  beds  all  picked  out  clearly  by  the  pale,  ethereal 
light.  The  restaurant  over  the  way  was  all  that  George 
said  it  was  and  more — very  bad.  The  whole  town  seemed 
to  be  comprised  of  this  one  great  hotel  and  an  enormous 
annex  for  servants  and  chauffeurs,  and  then  a  few  tatter 
demalion  resorts  and  the  town  cottages.  The  springs  in 
the  grounds  were  four  or  five  in  number,  all  handsomely 
hooded  with  Moorish  pavilions.  In  each  case  these  latter 
were  floored  with  colored  marbles,  and  you  went  down 
steps  into  them,  carrying  your  own  glass  and  drinking  all 
of  the  peculiar  tasting  fluid  you  could  endure.  Resident 
physicians  prescribe  treatments  or  methods,  for  a  price. 
The  very  wealthy  visitors  or  patients  often  bring  their 
own  physicians,  who  resent,  no  doubt,  all  local  medical 
advice.  The  victims,  or  lovers  of  leisure,  idle  about  these 
far-flung  grounds,  enjoying  the  walks,  the  smooth  grass, 
the  views,  the  golf  links  and  the  tennis  courts.  The 
hours  for  meals  are  the  principal  hours — and  dinner  from 
seven  to  nine  is  an  event — a  dress  affair.  The  grand 
parade  to  the  diningroom  seems  to  begin  at  six  fortyfive 
or  six  fifty.  At  that  time  you  can  sit  in  the  long  hall  lead- 


48o  A'HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

ing  to  that  very  essential  chamber  and  see  the  personages 
go  by. 

For  this  occasion,  at  breakfast  the  next  morning  and 
luncheon,  which  here  is  a  kind  of  an  affair  of  state,  Frank 
lin  and  I  did  well  enough.  We  were  given  tables  with  a 
pleasant  view,  walked  over  the  grounds,  drank  at  all  the 
springs,  bought  picture  postcards,  and  after  idling  and  get 
ting  thoroughly  refreshed,  decided  to  be  on  our  way. 
West  Baden,  as  it  proved,  was  directly  on  our  route  out 
of  town,  not  more  than  three  quarters  of  a  mile  off ;  and 
to  this  we  repaired,  also,  merely  to  see. 

If  anything,  it  was  more  assuming  in  its  appearance 
than  French  Lick.  The  principal  hotel,  an  enormous  one 
of  cream  brick  and  white  stone,  with  a  low,  flat,  red  oval 
dome,  Byzantine  or  Moroccan  in  spirit,  was  almost  of  the 
size  and  the  general  appearance  of  the  Trocadero  in 
Paris.  As  in  the  case  of  the  hotel  at  French  Lick,  the 
grounds  were  very  extensive  and  gardened  to  within  an 
inch  of  their  life.  Pagodas  and  smart  kiosks  indicated 
the  springs.  A  great  wide  circular  driveway  admitted  to 
the  entrance  of  the  principal  hotel.  Banked  and  parked 
with  stone,  there  was  a  stream  here  which  ran  through 
the  principal  grounds,  and  there  were  other  hotels  by  no 
means  humble  in  their  appearance. 

Satisfied  at  having  at  least  seen  these  twin  resorts,  I 
was  content  to  make  short  work  of  the  rest  of  the  jour 
ney.  At  Paoli  (what  a  rural  sounding  midwestern  name) , 
the  county  seat  of  this  poor  and  rather  backwoods  county, 
we  found  a  courthouse  so  small  and  countrified  that  we 
could  not  resist  the  desire  to  pause  and  observe  it — it 
was  so  nondescript — a  cross  between  a  Greek  temple  and 
a  country  school.  The  Greek  temple  was  surmounted  by 
a  small,  somewhat  German  looking  belfry.  About  it,  on 
all  sides,  ran  the  old  time  hitching  rail  for  wagons,  an 
unpretentious  note  which  indicated  the  nonarrival  of  the 
automobile.  To  it  were  fastened  a  collection  of  nonde 
script  wagons,  buggies,  and  buckboards,  intermingled  with 
three  or  four  small  automobiles.  I  got  out  and  walked 
through  it  only  to  see  the  county  treasurer,  or  someone  in 


FRENCH  LICK  481 

his  office,  sawing  away  on  a  fiddle.  The  music  was  not 
exactly  entrancing,  but  jolly.  Outside  stood  a  rather 
gaunt  and  malarial  looking  farmer  in  the  poorest  of 
crinkly  jeans,  threadbare  and  worn  at  the  elbows.  "Tell 
me,"  I  said.  "I  see  on  the  map  here  a  place  called  Lost 
River.  Is  there  a  river  here  and  does  it  disappear  under 
ground?" 

"That's  just  what  it  does,  mister,"  he  replied  most 
courteously,  "but  thar  ain't  nothin'  to  see.  The  water 
just  sorta  peters  out  as  it  goes  along.  You  can't  see 
nothin'  but  just  dry  stones.  I  don't  know  exactly  where 
it  does  come  up  again.  Out  here  Orangeville  way,  I 
think.  There  are  a  lot  of  underground  caves  around 
here." 

We  went  on,  but  on  discovering  a  splendid  stretch  of 
road  and  speeding  on  it,  we  forgot  all  about  Lost  River. 

Throughout  this  and  the  next  county  north,  the  roads 
seemed  to  attain  a  maximum  of  perfection,  possibly  due 
to  the  amazing  quarries  at  Bedford,  beyond.  We  traveled 
so  fast  that  we  ran  down  a  hen  and  left  it  fluttering  in  the 
road,  a  sight  which  gave  me  the  creeps  and  started  a  new 
train  of  speculation.  I  predicted  then,  to  myself  privately, 
that  having  run  down  one  thing  we  would  run  down  an 
other  before  the  trip  was  over,  for,  as  I  said  before,  this 
is  the  sort  of  thing  that  is  always  happening  to  me — what 
Nietzsche  would  call  my  typical  experience.  If  I  should 
stop  at  one  pretentious  hotel  like  the  Kittatinny,  on  a  trip 
like  this,  I  would  be  sure  to  stop  at  another,  like  French 
Lick,  before  I  was  through,  or  if  I  lost  a  valuable  ring  on 
Monday,  I  would  be  sure  to  lose  a  valuable  pin  on  Thurs 
day  or  thereabouts.  Life  goes  on  in  pairs  for  mp.  My 
one  fear  in  conn-ection  with  this  chicken  incident  was  that 
the  loss  might  prove  something  much  more  valuable  than 
a  chicken,  and  the  thought  of  death  by  accident,  to  others 
than  myself,  always  terrifies  me. 

Through  the  region  that  suggested  the  beauty  and 
sweep  of  western  New  York,  we  now  sped  into  Bedford 
City,  a  city  that  seemed  to  have  devoted  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  dollars  to  churches.  I  never  saw  so  many 


482  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

large  and  even  quite  remarkable  churches  in  so  small  a 
town.  It  only  had  twelve  thousand  population,  yet  the 
churches  looked  as  though  they  might  minister  to  thirty 
thousand. 

Just  at  the  edge  of  this  town,  north,  we  came  to  quar 
ries,  the  extent  and  impressiveness  of  which  seemed  to  me 
a  matter  of  the  greatest  import.  Carrara,  in  Italy,  is 
really  nothing  compared  with  this.  There  some  of  the 
pure  white  stone  is  mined — cut  from  tunnels  in  the 
sides  of  the  hills.  Here  the  quarries  are  all  open  to  the 
sky  and  reaching  for  miles,  apparently,  on  every  hand. 
Our  road  lay  along  a  high  ridge  which  divided  two  im 
mense  fields  of  stone,  and  sitting  in  our  car  we  could  see 
derricks  and  hear  electrically  driven  stone  drills  on  every 
hand  for  miles.  There  were  sheer  walls  of  stone,  thirty, 
forty,  and  as  it  seemed  to  me,  even  fifty  feet  high,  cut 
true  to  plummet,  and  which  revealed  veins  of  unquarried 
stone  suggesting  almost  untold  wealth.  At  the  bottom 
of  these  walls  were  pools  of  dull  green  water,  the  color  of 
a  smoky  emerald,  and  looking  like  a  precious  stone.  In 
the  distance,  on  every  hand,  were  hills  of  discarded  stone, 
or  at  least  stone  for  which  there  was  no  present  use.  I 
fancy  they  were  veined  or  broken  or  slightly  defective 
blocks  which  are  of  no  great  value  now,  but  which  a  more 
frugal  generation  may  discover  how  to  use.  In  every 
direction  were  car  tracks,  spurs,  with  flat  cars  loaded  or 
waiting  to  be  loaded  with  these  handsome  blocks.  As  we 
went  north  from  here,  following  a  line  of  railroad  that 
led  to  Bloomington,  Indiana,  the  ways  seemed  to  be  lined 
with  freight  trains  hauling  this  stone.  We  must  have 
passed  a  dozen  such  in  our  rapid  run  to  Bloomington. 

In  approaching  this  town  my  mind  was  busy  with  an 
other  group  of  reminiscences.  As  I  thought  back  over 
them  now,  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  must  have  been  a  most 
unsatisfactory  youth  to  contemplate  at  this  time,  one  who 
lacked  nearly  all  of  the  firm,  self-directive  qualities  which 
most  youths  of  my  age  at  that  time  were  supposed  to 
have.  I  was  eighteen  then,  and  all  romance  and  moon- 


FRENCH  LICK  483 

shine.  I  had  come  down  from  Chicago  after  these  sev 
eral  years  at  Warsaw  and  two  in  Chicago,  in  which  I  had 
been  trying  to  connect  commercially  with  life,  and  as  I 
may  say  now,  I  feel  myself  to  have  been  a  rather  poor 
specimen.  I  had  no  money  other  than  about  three  hundred 
dollars  loaned  to  me,  or  rather  forced  upon  me,  by  an 
ex-teacher  of  mine  (one  who  had  conducted  the  recitation 
room  in  the  high  school  at  Warsaw)  who,  finding  me 
working  for  a  large  wholesale  hardware  company  in 
Chicago,  insisted  that  I  should  leave  and  come  here  to  be 
educated. 

"You  may  never  learn  anything  directly  there,  Theo 
dore,"  she  counseled,  "but  something  will  come  to  you 
indirectly.  You  will  see  what  education  means,  what  its 
aim  is,  and  that  will  be  worth  a  great  deal.  Just  go  one 
year,  at  least,  and  then  you  can  decide  for  yourself  what 
you  want  to  do  after  that." 

She  was  an  old  maid,  with  a  set  of  false  upper  teeth, 
and  a  heavenly,  irradiating  smile.  She  had  led  a  very 
hard  life  herself,  and  did  not  wish  me  to.  She  was  pos 
sessed  of  a  wondrously  delicate  perception  of  romance, 
and  was  of  so  good  a  heart  that  I  can  scarcely  ever  think 
of  her  without  a  tendency  to  rhapsodize.  She  was  not 
beautiful,  and  yet  she  was  not  unattractive  either.  Four 
years  later,  having  eventually  married,  she  died  in  child 
birth.  At  this  time,  for  some  reason  not  clear  to  myself, 
she  yearned  over  me  in  a  tender,  delicate,  motherly  way. 
I  have  never  forgotten  the  look  in  her  eyes  when  she 
found  me  in  the  wholesale  hardware  house  (they  called 
me  down  to  the  office  and  I  came  in  my  overalls),  nor 
how  she  said,  smiling  a  delicate,  whimsical,  emotional 
smile : 

"Theodore,  work  of  this  kind  isn't  meant  for  you, 
really.  It  will  injure  your  spirit.  I  want  you  to  let  me 
help  you  go  to  school  again." 

I  cannot  go  into  the  romance  of  this — it  is  too  long  a 
story.  I  forget,  really,  whether  I  protested  much  or  not. 
My  lungs  and  stomach  were  troubling  me  greatly  and  I 
was  coughing  and  agonizing  with  dyspepsia  nearly  all  the 


484  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

while.  After  some  conferences  and  arrangements  made 
with  my  mother,  I  came — and  for  an  entire  college  year 
dreamed  and  wondered. 

I  know  now  for  a  fact  that  I  never  learned,  all  the 
time  I  was  there,  quite  what  it  was  all  about.  I  heard 
much  talk  of  -ologies  and  -tries  and  -isms  without  quite 
grasping  the  fundamental  fact  that  they  were  really  deal 
ing  with  plain,  ordinary,  everyday  life — the  forces  about 
us.  Somehow  I  had  the  vague  uncertain  notion  that  they 
did  not  concern  ordinary  life  at  all.  I  remember  one 
brisk  youth  telling  me  that  in  addition  to  law,  which  he 
was  studying,  he  was  taking  up  politics,  taxation,  econom 
ics,  and  the  like,  as  aids.  I  wondered  of  what  possible 
use  those  things  could  be  to  him,  and  how  much  superior 
his  mind  must  be  to  mine,  since  he  could  grasp  them  and  I, 
no  doubt,  could  not. 

Again,  the  professors  there  were  such  a  wondrous  com 
pany  to  me,  quite  marvelous.  They  were  such  an  outre 
company,  your  heavy-domed,  owl-like  wiseacres,  who  see 
in  books  and  the  storing  up  of  human  knowledge  in  books 
the  sum  and  substance  of  life's  significance.  As  I  look 
back  on  them  now  I  marvel  at  my  awe  of  them  then,  and 
at  that  time  I  was  not  very  much  awestricken  either — 
rather  nonplussed. 

Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  one  thing  that  I  really  wanted 
to  see  in  connection  with  this  college  was  a  ground  floor 
parlor  I  had  occupied  in  an  old,  rusty,  vine-covered  house, 
which  stood  in  the  center  of  a  pleasing  village  lawn  and 
had  for  a  neighbor  a  small,  one-story  frame,  where  dwelt 
a  hoyden  of  a  girl  who  made  it  her  business  to  bait  me  the 
first  semester  I  was  there.  This  room  I  had  occupied 
with  a  law  student  by  the  name  of  William  or  Bill  Wad- 
hams,  center  rush  and  almost  guiding  spirit  of  the  whole 
college  football  team,  and  afterwards  county  treasurer  of 
and  state  senator  from  an  adjacent  Indiana  county.  He 
was  a  romping,  stamping,  vigorous,  black-haired,  white- 
faced  pagan,  who  cursed  and  drank  a  little  and  played 
cards  and  flirted  with  the  girls.  He  could  be  so  mild 
and  so  engaging  that  when  I  first  saw  him  I  liked  him 


FRENCH  LICK  485 

immensely,  and  what  was  much  more  curious  he  seemed 
to  take  a  fancy  to  me.  We  made  an  agreement  as  to 
expenditures  and  occupying  the  same  room.  It  did  not 
seem  in  the  least  odd  to  me,  at  that  time,  that  he  should 
occupy  the  same  bed  with  me.  I  had  always  been  sleeping 
with  one  or  the  other  of  my  brothers.  It  was  more  odd 
that,  although  he  at  once  surrounded  himself  with  the 
creme-de-la-creme  of  the  college  football  world,  who  made 
of  our  humble  chamber  a  conference  and  card  room,  I 
got  along  well  enough  with  them  all  to  endure  it,  and  even 
made  friends  out  of  some  of  them.  They  were  charming 
— so  robust  and  boisterous  and  contentious  and  yet  genial. 
Through  his  personality  or  my  own — I  can  never  quite 
make  out  which — I  was  drawn  into  a  veritable  maelstrom 
of  college  life.  I  had  no  least  idea  what  I  wanted  to 
study,  but  because  I  had  been  deficient  in  certain  things 
in  high  school,  I  took  up  those, — first-year  Latin,  geom 
etry,  English  literature,  history  and  Old  English.  How  I 
ever  got  along  I  do  not  know.  I  think  I  failed  in  most 
things  because  I  never  mastered  grammar  or  mathe 
matics.  However,  I  staggered  on,  worrying  considerably 
and  feeling  that  my  life,  and  indeed  my  character,  was  a 
failure.  Between  whiles,  I  found  time  and  the  mood  for 
associating  with  and  enjoying  all  sorts  of  odd  personali 
ties — youth  of  the  most  diverse  temperaments  and  ambi 
tions,  who  seemed  to  find  in  me  something  which  they 
liked, — a  Michigan  law  student,  an  Indiana  minister's 
son,  a  boy  who  was  soon  to  be  heir  to  a  large  fortune 
and  so  on  and  so  on.  I  was  actually  popular  with  some, 
after  a  fashion,  and  if  I  had  known  how  to  make  use  of 
my  abilities  in  this  line — had  I  really  craved  friendship 
and  connections — I  might  have  built  up  some  enduring 
relationships  which  would  have  stood  me  in  good  stead, 
commercially  and  socially,  later.  As  it  was,  my  year 
ended,  I  left  college,  dropping  all  but  half  a  dozen  youths 
from  my  list  of  even  occasional  correspondents,  and 
finally  losing  track  of  all  of  them,  finding  in  different 
scenes  and  interests  all  that  I  seemed  to  require  in  the 
way  of  mental  and  social  diversion. 


CHAPTER   LIX 

A   COLLEGE   TOWN 

BLOOMINGTON,  as  we  sped  into  it,  did  not  seem  much 
changed  from  the  last  time  I  had  laid  eyes  upon  it, 
twentyfive  years  before,  only  now,  having  seen  the  more 
picturesque  country  to  the  south  of  it,  I  did  not  think  the 
region  in  which  it  lay  seemed  as  broken  and  diversified  as 
it  did  the  year  I  first  came  to  it.  Then  I  had  seen  only  the 
more  or  less  level  regions  of  northern  and  southern  In 
diana  and  the  territory  about  Chicago,  and  so  Blooming- 
ton  had  seemed  quite  remarkable,  physically.  Now  it 
seemed  more  or  less  tame,  and  in  addition,  it  had  grown 
so  in  size  and  architectural  pretentiousness  as  to  have 
obliterated  most  of  that  rural  inadequacy  and  backwoods 
charm  which  had  been  its  most  delightful  characteristic 
to  me  in  1889. 

Then  it  was  so  poor  and  so  very  simple.  The  court 
house  square  had  been  a  gem  of  moss-back  simplicity  and 
poverty,  more  attractive  even,  rurally  speaking,  than  that 
court  house  I  just  mentioned  as  being  the  charm  of  Paoli. 
Here,  also,  the  hitching  rail  had  extended  all  around  the 
square.  I  saw  more  tumble-down  wagons,  rheumatic  and 
broken-down  men,  old,  brown,  almost  moss  covered  coats 
and  thin,  bony,  spavined  horses  in  the  Bloomington  of 
1889  than  I  ever  saw  anywhere  before  or  since.  In  addi 
tion  to  this,  in  spite  of  the  smallness  of  the  college,  many 
of  the  six  hundred  students  had  considerable  money,  for 
Indiana  was  a  prosperous  state  and  these  youths  and  girls 
were  very  well  provided  for.  Secret  or  Greek  letter  so 
cieties  and  college  social  circles  of  different  degrees  of 
import  abounded.  There  were  college  rakes  and  college 
loafers  and  college  swells.  At  that  time  the  university 
chanced  to  have  a  faculty  which,  because  of  force  and 

486 


A  COLLEGE  TOWN  487 

brains,  was  attracting  considerable  attention.  David 
Starr  Jordan,  afterwards  President  of  Leland  Stanford,  * 
was  president  here.  William  Gifford  Swain,  afterwards  / 
President  of  Swarthmore,  was  professor  of  mathematics. 
Rufus  L.  Green,  a  man  who  made  considerable  stir  in 
mathematics  and  astronomy  in  later  years,  was  asso 
ciate  in  the  chair  of  mathematics.  Jeremiah  Jenks,  a 
man  who  figured  conspicuously  in  American  sociological 
and  political  discussion  in  after  life  and  added  consider 
able  luster  to  the  fame  of  Cornell,  was  occupying  the  chair 
of  sociology  and  political  economy.  Edward  Howard 
Griggs,  a  man  who  has  carried  culture,  with  a  large  C, 
into  all  the  women's  clubs  and  intellectual  movements  of 
one  kind  and  another  from  ocean  to  ocean,  was  occupying 
an  assistant  professorship  in  literature.  There  was  Von 
Hoist,  called  to  the  chair  of  history  at  the  University  of 
Chicago,  and  so  on — a  quite  interesting  and  scintillating 
galaxy  of  educative  minds. 

The  student  body,  of  which  I  was  such  an  unsatisfac 
tory  unit,  seemed  quite  well  aware  of  the  character  and 
import  of  the  men  above  them,  educationally.  There  was 
constant  and  great  talk  concerning  the  relative  merits  of 
each  and  every  one.  As  Miss  Fielding,  my  sponsor  and 
mentor,  had  predicted,  I  learned  more  concerning  the 
seeming  import  of  education,  the  branches  of  knowledge 
and  the  avenues  and  vocations  open  to  men  and  women 
in  the  intellectual  world  than  I  had  ever  dreamed  existed 
— and  just  from  hearing  the  students  argue,  apotheosize, 
anathematize,  or  apostrophize  one  course  or  one  pro 
fessor  or  another.  Here  I  met  my  first  true  radicals — 
young  men  who  disagreed  vigorously  and  at  every  point 
with  the  social  scheme  and  dogma  as  they  found  it. 
Here  I  found  the  smug  conventionalists  and  grinds  seek 
ing  only  to  carve  out  the  details  of  a  profession  and  sub 
sequently  make  a  living.  Here  I  found  the  flirt,  the  col 
lege  widow,  and  the  youth  with  purely  socializing  ten 
dencies,  who  found  in  college  life  a  means  of  gratifying 
an  intense  and  almost  chronic  desire  for  dancing,  dressing, 
spooning,  living  in  a  world  of  social  airs  and  dreams. 


488  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

There  were,  oddly  enough,  hard  and  chronic  religionists 
even  among  the  incoming  class,  who  were  bent  upon 
preaching  "the  kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand"  to  all  the 
world.  They  seemed  a  little  late  to  me,  even  at  that  day 
and  date,  though  I  was  still  not  quite  sure  myself. 

Catholicism  had  almost  made  heaven  and  hell  a  reality 
to  me.  And  here  were  attractive  and  intellectual  women 
— the  first  I  had  ever  seen,  really — who  in  those  parlia 
mentary  and  social  discussions  incidental  to  student  class 
and  social  life  as  represented  by  professorial  entertain 
ments  and  receptions,  could  rise  and  discuss  intelligently 
subjects  which  were  still  more  or  less  nebulous  to  me. 
They  gave  me  my  first  inkling  of  the  third  sex.  Indeed, 
it  was  all  so  interesting,  so  new,  so  fascinating,  that  I  was 
set  agape  and  remained  so  until  the  college  year  was  over. 

I  regained  my  health,  which  I  had  thought  all  but  lost, 
and  in  addition  began  to  realize  that  perhaps  there  were 
certain  things  I  might  intelligently  investigate  over  a 
period  of  years,  with  profit  to  myself.  I  began  to  see  that 
however  unsuited  certain  forms  of  intellectual  training 
and  certain  professions  might  be  to  me,  they  offered  dis 
tinct  and  worthy  means  of  employment  to  others. 
Though  I  had  been  aroused  at  first,  now  I  began  to  be 
troubled  and  unhappy.  I  felt  distinctly  that  I  had  wasted 
a  year,  or  worse  yet,  had  not  been  sufficiently  well 
equipped  mentally  to  make  the  most  of  it.  I  began  to  be 
troubled  over  my  future,  and  while  I  was  not  willing  to 
accept  my  sponsor's  kind  offer  and  return  the  following 
year  (I  realized  now  that  without  some  basic  training 
it  would  do  me  no  good) ,  still,  I  was  not  willing  to  admit 
to  myself  that  I  was  intellectually  hopeless.  There  must 
be  some  avenue  of  approach  to  the  intellectual  life  for 
me,  too,  I  said  to  myself, — only  how  find  it?  I  finally  left 
unhappy,  distrait,  scarcely  knowing  which  way  to  turn, 
but  resolved  to  be  something  above  a  mere  cog  in  a  com 
mercial  machine.  This  proved,  really,  one  of  the  most 
vitalizing  years  of  my  life. 

During  my  stay  here,  what  novel  sensations  did  I  not 
experience!  It  was  all  so  different  from  the  commercial 


A  COLLEGE  TOWN  489 

life  from  which  I  had  been  extricated  in  Chicago.  There 
I  had  been  rising  at  five  thirty,  eating  an  almost  impos 
sible  breakfast  (often  the  condition  of  my  stomach  would 
not  permit  me  to  eat  at  all),  taking  a  slow,  long  distance 
horse  car  to  the  business  heart,  working  from  seven  to 
six  with  an  hour  for  lunch,  in  a  crowded,  foreman  bossed 
loft,  and  then  taking  the  car  home  again  to  eat,  and  be 
cause  I  was  always  very  tired,  to  go  to  bed  almost  at 
once.  Only  Saturday  afternoons  in  summer  (the  Satur 
day  half  holiday  idea  was  then  becoming  known  in  Amer 
ica)  and  Sunday  in  winter  offered  sufficient  time  for  me 
to  recuperate  and  see  a  little  of  the  world  to  make  life 
somewhat  endurable  for  me, — a  situation  which  I  greatly 
resented.  It  was  most  exasperating. 

In  college  all  that  was  changed.  From  the  smoky, 
noisy  city,  I  was  transported  once  more  to  the  really 
peaceful  country,  where  all  was  green  and  sweet,  and 
where  owing  to  the  peculiarly  equable  climate  of  this 
region,  flowers  bloomed  until  late  December.  The  col 
lege  curriculum  necessitated  my  presence  in  class  only 
from  nine  until  twelve  thirty  or  so.  After  that  I  was  free 
to  study  or  do  as  I  chose.  Outside  my  window  in  this 
lovely  old  house  where  I  had  a  room  were  flowers  and 
vines  and  a  grape  arbor  heavy  with  blue  grapes,  and  a 
stretch  of  grass  that  was  like  balm  to  my  soul.  The  col 
lege  campus,  while  it  contained  but  a  few  humble  and 
unattractive  buildings,  was  so  strewn  with  great  trees  and 
threaded  through  one  corner  of  it  (where  I  entered  by  a 
stile)  with  a  crystal  clear  brook,  that  I  was  entranced. 
Many  a  morning  on  my  way  to  class  or  at  noon  on  my 
way  out,  I  have  thrown  myself  down  by  the  side  of  this 
stream,  stretched  out  my  arms  and  rested,  thinking  of  the 
difference  between  my  state  here  and  in  Chicago.  There 
I  was  so  unhappy  in  the  thing  that  I  was  doing.  The  Irish 
superintendent  who  was  over  my  floor  despised  me — 
very  rightly  so,  perhaps, — and  was  at  no  pains  to  conceal 
it,  threatening  always  to  see  that  I  was  discharged  at  the 
end  of  the  year.  Our  home  life  was  now  not  so  unpleas- 


490  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

ant,  only  I  found  no  time  to  enjoy  it;  my  work  was  too 
arduous. 

Here  were  no  pots  and  kettles  to  pile  in  bins,  no  end 
less  loads  of  tinware  and  woodenware  to  unpack  out  of 
straw  or  crates  and  store  away,  only  to  get  them  out 
again  on  orders.  There  I  felt  myself  a  pointless,  unim 
portant  bondslave.  Here  I  was  a  free,  intellectual 
agent,  to  come  or  go  as  I  chose.  I  could  even  attend 
classes  or  not  as  I  chose.  Study  was  something  I  must 
do  for  myself  or  not.  There  was  no  one  present  to  urge 
me  on.  Various  youths,  as  I  have  said,  at  once  gathered 
about  me.  Prospective  lawyers,  doctors,  politicians, 
preachers,  educators  in  embryo,  walked  by  my  side  or  sat 
by  me  at  the  club  boarding  table,  or  dropped  in  between 
four  and  six  of  an  afternoon,  or  walked  with  me  in  the 
country,  or  played  cards  on  Saturday  afternon  or  Sun 
day,  or  proposed  an  evening  at  church  or  at  a  debating 
society  to  discuss  philosophy  or  read,  or  even  a  call  upon 
a  girl.  I  was  not  very  well  equipped  materially,  but 
neither  was  I  absolutely  unpresentable,  and  aside  from 
the  various  Greek  letter  and  social  fraternities,  it  did  not 
make  so  much  difference.  I  was  never  actually  tapped 
for  membership  in  one  of  these  latter,  and  yet  I  was  told 
afterwards  that  two  different  fraternities  had  been  seri 
ously  divided  over  the  question  of  my  eligibility — another 
typical  experience  of  mine.  But  I  went  out  a  great  deal 
nevertheless,  dreamed  much,  idled,  rested;  and  if  at  the 
end  of  the  year  I  was  mentally  disgruntled  and  unhappy, 
physically  I  was  very  much  improved.  There  can  be  no 
question  of  that.  And  my  outlook  and  ambitions  were 
better. 

It  was  during  this  winter  that  I  experienced  several 
of  those  early,  and  because  I  was  young  and  very  im 
pressionable,  somewhat  memorable  love  affairs  which, 
however  sharp  the  impression  they  made  at  the  time,  came 
to  nothing.  Owing  to  a  very  retiring  and  nervous  dis 
position  I  could  never  keep  my  countenance  or  find  my 
tongue  in  the  presence  of  the  fair.  If  a  girl  was  pretty 


A  COLLEGE  TOWN  491 

and  in  the  least  coquettish  or  self  conscious,  I  was  at  once 
stricken  as  if  with  the  palsy,  or  left  rigid  and  played  over 
by  chills  and  fever. 

Adjoining  this  house,  in  the  cottage  previously  men 
tioned,  was  a  young,  tow  headed  hoyden,  who  no  sooner 
saw  that  I  was  in  this  house  as  a  guest,  than  she  plotted 
my  discomfiture  and  unrest. 

It  was  my  custom,  because  there  was  a  space  between 
two  windows  outside  of  which  were  flowers,  to  study  in 
the  east  side  of  my  room,  looking  out  on  the  lawn.  In 
the  cottage  adjoining  were  several  windows  through 
which,  on  divers  occasions  during  the  first  and  second 
week,  I  saw  a  girl  looking  at  me,  at  first  closing  the  shut 
ters  when  she  saw  me  looking;  but  later,  finding  me  bash 
ful,  no  doubt,  and  inclined  to  keep  my  eyes  on  my  books, 
leaving  them  open  and  even  singing  or  laughing  in  a  ring 
ing,  disturbing  way.  On  several  occasions  when  our  eyes 
met,  she  half  smiled,  or  seemed  to,  but  I  was  too  terrified 
by  the  thought  of  a  possible  encounter  on  the  strength  of 
this  to  be  able  to  continue  my  gaze,  or  to  do  what  would 
seem  the  logical  thing  to  most,  to  speak,  or  nod,  or  smile. 
Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  my  inability  to  meet  her  over 
tures  in  the  spirit  in  which  they  were  made,  she  was  ap 
parently  not  discouraged.  She  continued  to  half  smile — 
to  give  me  the  shaking  realization  that  some  day  soon  I 
might  have  to  talk  to  her  whether  I  would  or  not — and 
then  where  would  I  find  words? 

One  afternoon,  as  I  was  brooding  over  my  Latin,  at 
tempting  to  unravel  the  mysteries  of  conjugations  and 
modifications,  I  saw  her  come  out  of  her  back  door  and 
run  across  the  lawn  to  the  kitchen  of  the  old  widow  lady 
who  kept  this  house.  I  was  not  at  all  disturbed  by  this, 
only  interested,  and  keenly  so,  even  jealous  of  the  pleas 
ure  the  old  lady  was  to  have  in  the  girl's  company.  She 
was  exceedingly  pretty,  and  by  now  there  were  other  male 
students  in  the  house,  though  not  on  my  floor.  I  thought 
of  her  graceful  body  and  bright  hair  and  pink  cheeks, 
when  suddenly  there  was  a  knock  at  my  door,  and  open 
ing  it  I  encountered  the  feeble  old  lady  who  kept  the  place, 


492  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

very  nervous  and  bashful  herself,  but  smiling  amusedly  in 
a  sly,  senile  way. 

"The  young  lady  next  door  wants  to  know  if  you  won't 
help  her  with  her  Latin.  There's  something  she  can't 
quite  understand,"  she  said  weakly. 

Actually  my  blood  ran  cold.  My  hair  writhed  and 
rose,  then  wilted.  I  felt  shooting  pains  in  my  arms  and 
knees. 

"Why  certainly,"  I  managed  to  articulate,  not  knowing 
anything  about  Latin  grammar,  but  being  dizzard  enough 
to  imagine  that  any  educational  information  was  required 
on  this  occasion. 

I  followed  into  the  old  fashioned  diningroom,  with 
its  table  covered  with  a  red  cotton  cloth,  and  there  was 
the  girl  simpering  and  mock-shy,  looking  down  after  one 
appealing  glance  at  me,  and  wanting  to  know  if  I  wouldn't 
please  show  her  how  to  translate  this  sentence! 

We  sat  down  in  adjoining  chairs.  It  was  well,  for  my 
knees  were  rapidly  giving  way.  I  was  dunce  enough  to 
look  at  her  book  instead  of  her,  but  at  that  her  head  came 
so  close  that  her  hair  brushed  my  cheek.  My  tongue  by 
then  was  swollen  to  nine  times  its  normal  proportions. 
Nevertheless  I  managed  to  say  something — God  only 
knows  what.  My  hands  were  shaking  like  leaves.  She 
could  not  have  failed  to  notice.  Possibly  she  took  pity  on 
me,  for  she  looked  at  me  coyly,  laughed  off  her  alleged 
need,  inquired  if  I  was  taking  Latin,  and  wanted  to  know 
if  I  wasn't  from  Fort  Wayne,  Indiana.  She  knew  a  boy 
who  had  been  here  the  year  before  who  looked  like  me, 
and  he  was  from  Fort  Wayne. 

With  all  these  aids  I  could  do  nothing.  I  couldn't 
talk.  I  couldn't  think  of  a  single  blessed  thing  to  say.  It 
never  occurred  to  me  to  tease  her,  or  to  tell  her  how 
pretty  she  looked,  or  frankly  to  confess  that  I  knew  noth 
ing  of  Latin  but  that  I  liked  her,  and  to  jest  with  her 
about  love  and  boys.  That  was  years  beyond  me.  I  was 
actually  so  helpless  that  in  pity,  or  disgust,  she  finally  ex 
claimed,  "Oh,  well,  I  think  I  can  get  along  now.  I'm  so 


A  COLLEGE  TOWN  493 

much  obliged  to   you" — and  then  jumped  up  and  ran 
away. 

I  went  back  to  my  room  to  hide  my  head  and  to  be 
moan  my  cowardice  and  think  over  the  things  I  should 
have  said  and  done  and  the  things  I  would  do  tomorrow 
or  the  next  time  I  met  her.  But  there  never  was  any  next 
time.  She  never  troubled  to  look  so  teasingly  out  of  her 
window.  Thereafter  when  she  passed  the  house  she  ran 
and  seemed  absorbed  in  something  else.  If,  unavoidably, 
our  eyes  met,  she  nodded,  but  only  in  a  neighborly  way. 
And  then  in  a  few  days,  the  aforesaid  William  Wadhams 
appeared  upon  the  scene,  gallant  roysterer  that  he  was, 
and  made  short  work  of  her.  One  glance  and  there  was 
a  smile,  a  wave  of  the  hand.  The  next  afternoon  he  was 
leaning  over  her  fence  talking  in  the  most  gallant  fash 
ion.  There  was  a  gay  chase  a  day  or  two  later,  in  and 
out  of  bushes  and  around  trees,  in  an  attempt  to  kiss  her, 
but  she  got  away,  leaving  a  slipper  behind  her  which  he 
captured  and  kept  while  he  argued  with  her  through  her 
window.  Later  on  there  were  other  meetings.  She  went 
on  a  drive  with  him  somewhere  one  Sunday  afternoon. 
In  my  chagrined  presence  he  discanted  on  having  kissed 
her,  and  on  what  a  peach  she  was.  It  was  a  pathetic,  dis 
couraging  situation  for  me,  but  the  race  is  to  the  swift, 
the  battle  to  the  strong,  and  so  I  told  myself  at  the  time. 
I  really  did  not  resent  his  victory.  I  liked  him  too  much. 
But  I  developed  a  kind  of  horror  of  my  own  cowardice,  a 
contempt  for  my  ineptness,  which  in  later  years,  year  by 
year,  finally  built  up  a  kind  of  courage. 

There  was  another  girl,  fifteen  or  sixteen,  across  the 
street  from  me,  the  daughter  of  a  doctor,  living  in  a  low, 
graceful,  romantic  cottage,  fronted  by  trees  and  flowers. 
She  inspired  me  with  an  entirely  different  kind  of  pas 
sion.  The  first  was  heavily  admixed  with  desire — the 
girl  who  approached  me  inspired  it.  In  the  second  case 
it  was  wholly  sexless,  something  which  sprang  like  a 
white  flame  at  the  sight  of  a  delicate,  romantic  face, 
and  while  it  tortured  me  for  years,  never  went  beyond 


494  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

the  utmost  outposts  of  romance.  Although  later  I  often 
fell  in  love  with  others,  still  I  could  never  quite  get  her 
out  of  my  mind.  And  though  she  colored  this  whole  year 
for  me,  desperately,  I  never  even  spoke  to  her. 

I  first  saw  her  coming  home  from  school,  a  slim, 
delicate,  tenuous  type,  her  black  hair  smoothed  back  from 
her  brow,  her  thin,  slender  white  hands  holding  a  few 
books,  a  long  cape  or  mackintosh  hung  loosely  about  her 
shoulders,  and — I  adored  her  at  sight.  The  fictional  rep 
resentations  of  Dante's  Beatrice  are  the  only  ones  that 
have  ever  represented  her  to  me.  I  looked  after  her 
day  after  day  until  finally  she  noticed  me.  Once  she 
paused  as  she  went  into  her  home,  her  books  under  her 
arm,  and  picking  a  flower  stood  and  held  it  to  her  face, 
glancing  only  once  in  my  direction.  Then  she  danced 
lightly  up  her  steps  and  disappeared.  At  other  times, 
as  she  would  pass,  she  would  glance  at  me  furtively,  and 
then  seem  to  hurry  on.  She  seemed  terrorized  by  my 
admiration.  I  did  my  best  to  screw  up  my  courage  to 
the  point  of  being  able  to  address  her,  and  yet  I  never 
did.  There  were  so  many  opportunities,  too !  Daily  she 
went  to  the  post  office  or  down  town  for  something  or 
other,  nearly  every  afternoon  she  came  home  along  the 
same  street,  and  most  often  alone.  With  some  girls, 
or  her  sister,  who  was  learning  to  play  the  violin,  she 
went  to  church  of  a  Wednesday  and  Sunday  evening.  I 
followed  her  and  attended  that  church — or  waited  out 
side.  Once  in  January,  right  after  the  Christmas  holi 
days,  there  was  a  heavy  snow  fall  and  we  had  sleighing 
on  this  very  street.  She  came  out  with  her  sled  one 
Saturday  morning  and  looked  over  at  me  where  I  was 
sitting  by  my  window,  studying.  I  wanted  to  go  forth 
and  speak  to  her  on  this  hill — there  were  so  few  there — 
but  I  was  afraid.  And  she  sledded  alone ! 

Then  as  the  year  drifted  toward  spring,  I  wrote  her 
a  note.  I  composed  fifteen  before  I  wrote  this  one,  ask 
ing  her  if  she  would  not  come  down  to  the  campus  stile 
after  she  had  put  her  books  away — that  I  wanted  to  talk 
with  her.  It  was  a  foolish  note,  quite  an  impossible 


A  COLLEGE  TOWN  495 

proposition  for  a  girl  of  her  years — frightening.  All  I 
had  to  say  I  could  have  said,  falling  in  step  with  her 
at  some  point,  and  beginning  a  friendly,  innocent  conver 
sation.  But  I  was  too  wrought  up  and  too  cowardly  to 
be  able  to  do  the  natural  thing. 

After  days  of  preliminary  meditation  I  finally  met  her 
in  her  accustomed  path,  and  handed  her  the  paper.  She 
took  it  with  a  frightened,  averted  glance — there  was  a 
look  of  actual  fear  in  her  eyes — and  hurried  on.  I  went 
to  the  stile,  but  she  did  not  come.  I  saw  her  afterward, 
but  she  turned  away,  not  in  opposition,  I  could  see  that, 
but  in  fright.  That  night  I  saw  her  come  to  the  win 
dow  and  look  over  at  my  window,  but  when  she  saw  me 
looking  she  quickly  drew  the  blind.  Thereafter  she  would 
look  regularly,  and  one  evening,  after  putting  away  her 
books,  I  saw  her  walk  down  to  the  stile,  but  now  I  was 
too  frightened  to  follow.  And  so  it  went  until  the  end 
of  the  second  semester,  when,  because  of  room  changes 
and  most  of  the  crowd  I  was  familiar  with  moving  to 
the  district  immediately  south  of  the  college,  I  felt 
obliged  to  move  also.  Besides,  by  now  I  had  given  up 
in  despair.  I  felt  that  she  must  feel  and  see  that  I  was 
without  vitality — and  as  for  my  opinion  of  myself,  it  is 
beyond  description. 

I  left,  but  often  of  an  evening  in  the  spring  I  used 
to  come  and  look  at  her  windows,  the  lighted  lamp  in 
side  communicating  a  pale  luster  to  them.  I  was  mis 
erably,  painfully  unhappy  and  sad.  But  I  never  spoke. 
The  very  last  day  of  my  stay  but  one,  in  the  evening, 
I  went  again — just  to  see. 

What  better  tribute  could  I  pay  to  beauty  in  youth  I 


CHAPTER  LX 

"BOOSTER  DAY"  AND  A  MEMORY 

ENTERING  Bloomington  this  afternoon,  the  memories 
of  all  my  old  aches  and  pains  were  exceedingly  dim.  We 
say  to  ourselves  at  many  particular  times,  "I  will  never 
forget  this,"  or,  "The  pain  of  this  will  endure  forever," 
but,  alas!  even  our  most  treasured  pains  and  sufferings 
escape  us.  We  are  compelled  to  admit  that  the  memory 
of  that  which  rankled  so  is  very  dim.  Marsh  fires,  all 
of  us.  We  are  made  to  glow  by  the  heat  and  radiance  of 
certain  days,  but  we  fade — and  we  vanish. 

Nevertheless,  entering  Bloomington  now  it  had  some 
charm,  only  as  I  thought  the  whole  thing  over  the  mem 
ory  of  my  various  sex  failures  still  rankled.  "I  was  not 
really  happy  here,"  I  told  myself.  "I  was  in  too  transient 
and  inadequate  a  mood."  And  perhaps  that  was  true. 
At  any  rate,  I  wanted  to  see  this  one  principal  room  I 
have  previously  mentioned,  and  the  college  and  the  court 
house,  and  feel  the  general  atmosphere  of  the  place. 

As  a  whole,  the  town  was  greatly  changed,  but  not 
enough  to  make  it  utterly  different.  One  could  still  see 
the  old  town  in  the  new.  For  although  the  old,  ram 
shackle,  picturesque  attractive  court  house  had  been  sub 
stituted  by  a  much  larger  and  more  imposing  build 
ing  of  red  brick  and  white  stone — a  not  uninteresting 
design — still  a  number  of  the  buildings  which  had  for 
merly  surrounded  it  were  here.  The  former  small  and 
by  no  means  cleanly  post  office,  with  its  dingy  paper  and 
knife  marked  writing  shelf  on  one  side,  had  been  re 
placed  by  a  handsome  government  building  suitable  for 
a  town  of  thirty  or  forty  thousand.  A  new  city  hall,  a 
thing  unthought  of  in  my  day,  was  being  erected  in  a 
street  just  south  of  the  square.  New  bank  buildings,  dry- 

496 


"BOOSTER  DAY"  AND  A  MEMORY      497 


goods  stores,  drug  store,  restaurants,  were  all  in  evi 
dence.  In  my  time  there  had  been  but  two  restaurants, 
both  small,  and  one  almost  impossible.  Now  there  were 
four  or  five  quite  respectable  ones,  and  one  of  consider 
able  pretensions.  In  addition,  down  the  Main  Street 
could  be  seen  the  college,  or  university,  a  striking  group 
of  buildings  entirely  different  from  those  I  had  known. 
A  picture  postcard,  referring  to  one  of  the  buildings, 
spoke  of  five  thousand  population  for  the  city,  and  a 
four  thousand  attendance  for  the  University. 

Feeling  that  too  much  had  disappeared  to  make  our 
stop  of  any  particular  import,  still  I  was  eager  to  see 
what  had  become  of  the  old  rooming  house,  and  whether 
the  little  cottage  next  door  and  the  home  of  Beatrice  over 
the  way  were  still  in  existence.  Under  my  guidance  we 
turned  at  the  exact  corner,  and  stopped  the  car  at  the 
curb.  I  was  by  no  means  uncertain,  for  on  the  corner 
diagonal  from  my  old  room  was  a  quondam  student's 
rooming  house  too  obviously  the  same  to  be  mistaken. 
But  where  was  the  one  in  which  I  had  lived?  Appar 
ently  it  was  gone.  There  was  an  old  house  on  the  corner 
looking  somewhat  like  it,  and  the  second  from  it  on 
the  same  side  was  evidently  the  small  house  in  which 

Miss  T had  lived ;  and  over  the  way — yes,  save  for 

another  house  crowded  in  beside  it,  that  was  the  same  too. 
Only  in  the  case  of  this  house  on  the  corner  .  .  . 

All  at  once  it  came  to  me.  I  could  see  what  had  been 
done. 

"Willie,*1  I  said,  to  a  boy  who  was  playing  marbles 
with  two  other  boys,  right  in  front  of  us,  "how  long  has 
this  second  house  been  here — this  one  next  to  the 
corner?" 

"I  don't  know.  I've  only  been  here  since  Booster 
Day." 

"Booster  Day?"  I  queried,  suddenly  and  entirely  di-   I 
verted  by  this  curious  comment.     "What  in  the  world  is 
Booster  Day?" 

"Booster  Day!"     He  stared  incredulously,  as  though 


498  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

he  had  not  quite  heard.  "Aw,  gwann,  you  know  what 
Booster  Day  is." 

"I  give  you  my  solemn  word,"  I  replied,  very  seri 
ously.  "I  don't.  I  never  heard  of  it  before.  Believe 
it  or  not — I  never  did.  I  don't  live  anywhere  around 
here,  you  know." 

"Hey,  Tozer,"  he  called  to  another  boy  who  was  up 
in  a  tree  in  front  of  the  house,  and  who  up  to  this 
moment  had  been  keeping  another  youth  from  coming 
near  by  striking  at  him  with  a  stick,  "here's  a  feller  says 
he  never  heard  of  Booster  Day.  Aw,  haw!" 

"It's  the  truth,"  I  persisted.  "I'm  perfectly  serious. 
You  think  I'm  teasing  you,  but  I'm  not.  I  never  heard 
of  it." 

"Where  dya  live  then?"  he  asked. 

"New  York,"  I  replied. 

"City?" 

"Yes." 

"Didya  come  out  here  in  that  car?" 

"Yes." 

"And  they  ain't  got  a  Booster  Day  in  New  York?" 

"I  never  heard  of  one  before." 

"Well,  we  have  one  here." 

"Well,  when  does  it  come,  then?"  I  asked,  hoping 
to  get  at  it  in  that  way. 

"In  summer  time,"  he  replied,  smiling,  "now — about 
August." 

"No,  it  don't,"  commented  the  boy  in  the  tree.  "It 
comes  in  the  spring.  I  know  because  we  were  still  in 
school  yet  last  year,  and  they  let  us  out  that  day." 

"Well,  what  month  was  it  in  then  ?"  I  went  on.  "April, 
May,  June?" 

"May,  I  think,"  said  the  boy  in  the  tree.  "I  know  we 
were  still  in  school  anyhow." 

"Well,  what  do  they  do  on  Booster  Day?"  I  inquired 
of  the  boy  on  the  ground.  "What  do  you  do?" 

"Well,"  he  said,  kicking  the  bricks  with  his  toes,  "they, 
now,  send  up  balloons  and  shoot  off  firecrackers  and  have 


"BOOSTER  DAY"  AND  A  MEMORY      499 

a  parade,  and  someone  goes  up  in  a  flying  machine,  at 
least  he  did  last  year." 

uYes,  what  for,  though?"  I  inquired. 

"Because  it's  Booster  Day,"  he  insisted. 

"But  don't  you  see  that  isn't  an  answer?"  I  pleaded. 
"I  want  to  know  what  Booster  Day  is  for — why  they  have 
it,  why  they  send  up  balloons  and  call  it  Booster  Day. 
They  didn't  have  a  Booster  Day  when  I  lived  out  here." 

"I  know,"  called  the  boy  in  the  tree  gallantly.  He 
had  evidently  been  turning  this  problem  over  in  his  own 
mind,  and  now  came  to  the  other's  rescue.  "It's  the  day 
all  the  stores  advertise  to  get  people  to  come  into  town. 
It's  to  boost  the  town." 

"Well,  now,  that  sounds  reasonable,"  I  commented. 
"And  does  it  come  on  the  same  day  every  year?" 

"I  don't  know.     I  think  so." 

"Well,  how  long  have  you  been  here?" 

"I  was  born  here." 

"And  have  you  always  had  a  Booster  Day?" 

"Yes,  sir."   ' 

"Well  now,  there  you  have  it,"  I  said  to  the  first  boy. 
"Booster  Day  is  the  day  you  boost  the  town — advertis 
ing  day.  You  think  it's  always  been  and  yet  you  don't 
even  know  what  day  it  comes  on.  I'll  bet  you  haven't 
had  such  a  day  out  here  for  more  than  ten  years." 

"Ooh!"  chimed  in  one  of  the  little  ones,  quite  apropos 
of  so  great  a  flight  of  time.  "I  was  born — now — three 
years  ago." 

"Were  you?"  I  said.  "Then  you  scarcely  know  of 
Booster  Day,  do  you?" 

"No." 

"Ya  do,  too,"  put  in  the  ground  boy.  "Ya  said  awhile 
ago  ya  saw  the  parade  last  summer." 

"No,  I  never." 

"Ya  did  too." 

To  prevent  hostilities  over  this  very  important  point, 
I  said  to  another  boy,  drawn  near,  and  who  was  standing 
by  open-mouthed:  "Where  do  you  live?" 


500  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

"In  there,"  he  pointed,  indicating  my  old  study.  "We 
keep  boarders." 

"Then  you  can  tell  me  maybe — did  that  house  always 
have  a  porch?" 

"No,  sir.    They  put  that  one  on  two  years  ago." 

"And  was  it  always  on  the  corner?" 

"No,  sir.  They  moved  it  over  when  they  built  this 
house  in  here.  I  know  'cause,  now,  we  lived  down  there 
before  we  moved  up  here,  and  I  seen  'em  do  it." 

"That  settles  it,"  I  said  cheerfully.  "Do  you  suppose 
your  mother  would  let  me  go  in  and  look  at  that  corner 
room?" 

"My  mother's  away  to  the  country.  It's  only  my  sis 
ter's  at  home.  But  you  can  come  in.  The  room  ain't 
rented  now." 

He  marched  briskly  up  the  steps  and  opened  the  door. 
I  followed  while  Franklin,  who  had  been  idly  listening 
to  the  conversation  as  he  sketched,  stood  outside  and 
watched  me.  It  was  quite  the  same,  save  for  a  new, 
smooth,  hardwood  floor  and  the  porch.  The  window 
where  I  always  sat  commanded  no  view  of  any  lawn,  but, 
looking  across  the  way  and  at  the  house  diagonally  oppo 
site,  I  could  get  it  all  back.  And  it  touched  me  in  a  way 
— like  the  dim,  far-off  echo  or  suggestion  of  something — 
a  sound,  an  odor — one  could  sca'rcely  say  what.  At  best 
it  was  not  cheerful,  a  slight  pain  in  it, — and  I  was  glad 
to  leave. 

Once  outside  I  sat  under  the  wide  spreading  elms  wait 
ing  for  Franklin  to  finish  his  sketch  and  thinking  of  old 
days.  Over  there,  in  the  house  diagonally  opposite,  on 
the  second  floor,  had  lived  Thompson,  the  vain,  in  his 
delightfully  furnished  room.  I  always  thought  of  him 
as  vain,  even  in  school.  He  was  so  tall,  so  superior, 
with  a  slight  curl  to  his  fine  lips,  with  good  clothes,  a 
burning  interest  in  football  and  hockey,  and  money,  ap 
parently,  to  gratify  his  every  whim.  He  had  a  kindly, 
curious  and  yet  supercilious  interest  in  me,  and  occasion 
ally  stopped  in  to  stare  at  me,  apparently,  and  ask  casu 
ally  after  my  work. 


"BOOSTER  DAY"  AND  A  MEMORY      501 

And  around  the  corner  of  the  next  block,  in  a  large 
square  house,  but  poorly  provided  with  trees,  lived  one 
of  the  most  interesting  of  the  few  who  took  an  interest 
in  me  at  the  time.  I  could  write  a  long  and  exhaustive 
character  study  of  this  youth,  but  it  would  be  of  no  great 
import  here.  He  was  a  kind  of  fox  or  wolf  in  his  way, 
with  an  urbane  and  enticing  way  of  showing  his  teeth  in 
a  smile  which  quite  disarmed  my  opposition  and  inter 
ested  me  in  him.  He  was  a  card  sharp  and  as  much  a 
gambler  as  any  young  boy  may  be.  He  drank,  too, 
though  rarely  to  excess.  All  the  mechanistic  religious 
and  moral  propaganda  of  the  college  intended  to  keep 
the  young  straight  were  to  him  a  laughing  matter.  He 
was  his  own  boss  and  instructor.  Evidently  his  family 
had  some  money,  for  they  seemed  to  provide  him  freely. 
Once  he  came  to  me  with  the  proposal  that  we  take  two 
girls,  both  of  whom  he  knew  and  to  whom  he  seemed 
perfectly  willing  to  recommend  me  in  the  most  ardent 
fashion,  to  Louisville  over  a  certain  holiday — Washing 
ton's  Birthday,  I  think — he  to  arrange  all  details  and 
expenses.  At  first  I  refused,  but  after  listening  to  him  I 
was  persuaded  and  agreed  to  go.  The  result,  as  I  feared, 
proved  decidedly  disastrous  to  my  vanity. 

His  girl,  whom  he  took  me  to  see,  was  petite,  dark, 
attractive,  by  no  means  shy  or  inexperienced;  and  at  her 
house  I  was  introduced  to  a  plump,  seductive  blonde  of 
about  seventeen,  who  was  quite  ready  for  any  adventure. 
She  had  been  told  about  me,  almost  persuaded  against 
her  will,  I  fancy,  to  like  me.  But  I  had  no  tongue.  I 
could  not  talk  to  her.  I  was  afraid  of  her.  Still,  by 
reason  of  a  superhuman  effort  on  my  part  to  seem  at 
ease,  and  not  dull,  I  got  through  this  evening;  how  I 
don't  know.  At  any  rate,  I  had  not  alienated  her 
completely. 

The  following  Sunday  we  went,  and  had  I  had  the 
least  sang  froid  or  presence,  I  might  then  and  there 
have  been  instructed  in  all  the  mysteries  of  love.  This 
girl  was  out  for  an  adventure.  She  was  jealous  of  the 
attention  showered  upon  her  friend  by  W .  Se- 


502  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

cretly  I  think  she  admired  him,  only  in  this  instance 
loyalty  to  her  friend  and  indifference  on  his  part  made 
any  expression  of  it  a  little  difficult.  I  was  a  poor  sub 
stitute — a  lay  figure — of  which  she  was  perfectly  will 
ing  to  make  use. 

On  the  way  on  the  train  we  sat  in  the  same  seat  and 
I  took  her  hand.  A  little  later  I  gallantly  compelled 
myself  to  slip  my  arm  around  her  waist,  though  it  was 
almost  with  fear  and  trembling.  I  could  not  think  of 
any  witty,  interesting  things  to  say,  and  I  was  deadly  con 
scious  of  the  fact.  So  I  struggled  along  torturing  my 
self  all  the  way  with  thoughts  of  my  inadequacy. 

Arrived  at  Louisville,  we  walked  about  to  see  the 
sights.  There  had  been  a  great  tornado  a  few  days 
before,  and  the  tremendous  damage  was  still  very  much 
in  evidence.  Then  we  went  to  the  principal  hotel  for 
dinner.  My  friend,  with  an  effrontery  which  to  me 
passed  over  into  the  realm  of  the  unbelievable,  registered 
for  the  four  of  us,  taking  two  rooms.  I  never  even  saw 
the  form  of  registration.  Then  we  went  up,  and  my  girl 
companion,  having  by  now  concluded  that  I  was  a  stick, 

went  into  the  room  whither  W and  his  sweetheart 

had  retired.  W came  to  my  room  for  me,  and  we 

went  down  to  dinner.  He  even  urged  more  boldness 
on  my  part. 

After  dinner,  which  passed  heavily  enough  for  me, 
for  I  was  conscious  of  failure,  we  had  five  hours  before 
our  train  should  be  due  to  return.  That  time  was  spent 
in  part  by  myself  and  this  girl  idling  in  the  general  par 
lors,  because  W and  his  mate  had  mysteriously 

disappeared.  Then  after  an  hour  or  more  they  sought 
us  out  and  suggested  a  drive.  Since  we  had  brought 
bags,  we  had  to  return  to  the  hotel  to  get  them  and  pay 
the  bill.  There  was  still  three  quarters  of  an  hour. 
After  perfecting  her  toilet  in  the  room  belonging  to  my 
friend,  my  girl  came  downstairs  to  the  parlor  and,  a 

half  hour  later,  just  in  time  to  make  the  train,  W 

and  his  charmer  appeared.  The  day  was  done.  The 


"BOOSTER  DAY"  AND  A  MEMORY      503 

opportunity  gone.  As  in  the  previous  cases,  I  heaped 
mounds  of  obloquy  upon  my  head.  I  told  myself  over 
and  over  that  never  again  would  I  venture  to  make  over 
tures  to  any  woman — that  it  would  be  useless.  "I  am 
doomed  to  failure,"  I  said.  "No  girl  will  ever  look  at 
me.  I  am  a  fool,  a  dunce,  homely,  pathetic,  inadequate." 

Back  in  Bloomington  I  parted  from  them  in  a  black 
despair,  concealing  my  chagrin  under  a  masque  of  pseudo- 
gaiety.  But  when  I  was  alone  I  could  have  cried.  I 

never  saw  that  maiden  any  more.  Afterwards  W 

took  me  to  see  his  girl  again.  He  had  no  feeling  of  dis 
appointment  in  me,  apparently,  or  rather  he  was  careful 
to  conceal  it.  He  seemed  to  like  me  quite  as  much  as 
ever,  but  he  proposed  no  more  outings  of  that  kind. 

And  there  were  C.  C.  Hall,  who  lived  in  a  small  hall 
bedroom  over  me,  and  used  to  insist,  for  policy's  sake, 
I  fancy,  that  he  thought  better  in  a  small  room,  and  that 
too  much  heat  was  not  very  healthy;  and  Short  Bill 
Haughey,  expert  on  the  violin  and  a  seeker  after  knowl 
edge  in  connection  with  politics  and  taxation;  Arthur 
Pendleton,  solemn  delver  into  the  intricacies  of  the  law; 
Russell  Ratliff,  embryo  metaphysician  and  stoic — a  long 
company.  I  can  see  them  now,  all  life  before  them,  the 
old,  including  men  and  women,  merely  so  much  baggage 
to  be  cleared  away — their  careers,  their  loves,  their  hopes 
all  that  was  important  in  life.  And  life  then  felt  so 
fresh  and  good,  so  inviting. 

After  this  came  the  university,  wholly  changed,  but 
far  more  attractive  than  it  had  been  in  my  day — a  really 
beautiful  school.  I  could  find  only  a  few  things — Wylie 
Hall,  the  brook,  a  portion  of  some  building  which  had 
formerly  been  our  library.  It  had  been  so  added  to 
that  it  was  scarcely  recognizable.  I  ran  back  in  mem 
ory  to  all  those  whom  I  had  known  here — the  young 
men,  the  women,  the  professors.  Where  were  they  all? 
Suddenly  I  felt  dreadfully  lonely,  as  though  I  had  been 
shipwrecked  on  a  desert  island.  Not  a  soul  did  I  know 
any  more  of  all  those  who  had  been  here;  scarcely  one 


5o4  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

could  I  definitely  place.  What  is  life  that  it  can  thus 
obliterate  itself,  I  asked  myself.  If  a  whole  realm  of 
interests  and  emotions  can  thus  definitely  pass,  what  is 
anything? 


CHAPTER  LXI 

THE    END   OF  THE    JOURNEY 

WE  sped  north  in  the  gathering  dusk,  and  I  was  glad 
to  go.  It  was  as  though  I  had  been  to  see  something 
that  I  had  better  not  have  seen — a  house  that  is  tenant- 
less,  a  garden  that  is  broken  down  and  ravished  and  run 
to  weeds  and  wild  vines,  naked  and  open  to  the  moon — 
a  place  of  which  people  say  in  whispers  that  it  is  haunted. 
Yes,  this  whole  region  was  haunted  for  me. 

I  took  small  interest  in  the  once  pleasing  and  even  dra 
matic  ravine  where,  in  my  college  year,  I  had  so  often 
rambled,  and  which  then  seemed  so  beautiful.  Now  I 
was  lonely.  If  I  were  to  add  one  chamber  to  Dante's 
profound  collection  in  the  Inferno,  it  would  be  one  in 
which,  alone  and  lonely,  sits  one  who  contemplates  the 
emotions  and  the  fascinations  of  a  world  that  is  no  more. 

For  a  little  way  the  country  had  some  of  the  aspects 
of  the  regions  south  of  French  Lick,  but  we  were  soon 
out  of  that,  at  a  place  called  Gosport,  and  once  more 
in  that  flat  valley  lying  between  the  White  and  Wabash 
rivers.  At  Gosport,  though  it  was  almost  dark,  we  could 
see  an  immense  grassy  plain  or  marsh  which  the  over 
flowing  river  had  made  for  itself  in  times  past,  a  region 
which  might  easily  be  protected  by  dykes  and  made  into 
a  paradise  of  wheat  or  corn.  America,  however,  is  still 
a  young  and  extravagant  country,  not  nearly  done  sow 
ing  its  wild  oats,  let  alone  making  use  of  its  opportuni 
ties,  and  so  such  improvements  are  a  long  time  off. 

At  Gosport,  a  very  poorly  lighted  town,  quite  dark, 
we  were  told  that  the  quickest  way  to  Martinsville,  which 
was  on  our  route  to  Indianapolis,  was  to  follow  the  river 
road,  and  because  the  moon  had  not  risen  yet,  we  were 
halloing  at  every  crossroads  to  find  out  whether  we  were 
on  the  right  one. 

505 


506  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

"Hallo-o-o!" 

"Hallo!     What  do  you  want?" 

"This  the  right  road  to  Martinsville?" 

"Straight  on!" 

How  often  this  little  hail  and  farewell  occurred  out 
side  houses  set  bad.  far  from  the  road! 

And  the  night  lights  of  machines  coming  toward  us 
were  once  more  as  picturesque  as  those  east  of  War 
saw,  New  York.  From  afar  we  could  see  them  coming 
along  this  flat  bottomland,  like  giant  fireflies,  their  rays, 
especially  when  they  swept  about  turns,  seeming  to  stand 
out  before  them  like  the  long  feeling  antennae  of  insects, 
white  and  cautious.  They  were  all  headed  in  the  direc 
tion  of  Gosport,  though  it  did  not  seem  quite  possible 
that  they  were  all  going  there. 

In  this  warm,  sensuous  wind  that  was  blowing  here, 
it  seemed  as  though  nature  must  be  about  some  fruitful 
labor.  Sometimes  a  night  achieves  a  quality  of  this  sort, 
something  so  human  and  sympathetic  that  it  is  like  a 
seeking  hand.  I  sat  back  in  the  car  meditating  on  all 
I  had  seen,  how  soon  now  we  would  be  in  Indianapolis 
and  Carmel, — and  then  this  trip  would  be  over.  Already 
with  turns  and  twists  and  bypaths  we  had  registered  about 
two  thousand  miles.  We  had  crossed  four  states  and 
traversed  this  fifth  one  from  end  to  end  nearly.  I  had 
seen  every  place  in  which  I  had  ever  lived  up  to  sixteen 
years  of  age,  and  touched,  helplessly,  on  every  pleasant 
and  unpleasant  memory  that  I  had  known  in  that  period. 
The  land  had  yielded  a  strange  crop  of  memories  and  of 
characteristics  to  be  observed.  What  did  I  think  of  all 
I  had  seen,  I  asked  myself.  Had  the  trip  been  worth 
while?  Was  it  wise  to  disinter  those  shades  of  the  past 
and  brood  over  them?  I  recalled  the  comment  of  the 
poet  to  whom  I  had  given  the  reception  when  I  told  him 
I  was  coming  out  here.  "You  won't  get  anything  out 
of  it.  It  will  bore  you."  But  had  I  been  bored?  Had 
I  not  gotten  something  out  of  it?  Somehow  the  lines 
of  the  ghost  in  Hamlet  kept  repeating  themselves: 


THE  END  OF  THE  JOURNEY          507 

"I  am  thy  father's  spirit,  doomed  for  a  certain  time 
to  walk  the  earth — " 

Martinsville,  about  half  way  to  Indianapolis,  counting 
from  Gosport,  was  another  county  seat,  and  in  stopping 
there  for  a  shave  and  a  mouthful  of  something  to  eat, 
I  learned  that  this,  also,  was  a  locally  celebrated  water 
ing  place,  that  there  were  not  less  than  six  different  sana- 
toriums  here,  and  always  as  many  as  fifteen  hundred  pa 
tients  taking  the  baths  and  drinking  the  water  for  rheu 
matism  and  gout — and  I  had  scarcely  ever  heard  of  the 
place.  The  center  of  the  town  looked  as  though  it  might 
be  enjoying  some  form  of  prosperity,  for  the  court  house 
on  all  sides  was  surrounded  by  large  and  rather  tasteful 
and  even  metropolitan  looking  shops.  This  portion  of 
the  city  was  illuminated  by  five-lamp  standards  and  even 
boasted  two  or  three  small  fire  signs.  I  began  to  won 
der  when,  if  ever,  these  towns  would  take  on  more  than 
the  significance  of  just  newness  and  prosperity.  Or  is 
it  better  that  people  should  live  well  always,  rather  than 
that  their  haunts  should  be  lighted  by  the  fires  of  trag 
edy?  Did  Rome  really  need  to  be  sacked?  Did  Troy 
need  to  fall? 

Franklin  seemed  to  consider  that  peace  and  human 
comfort  were  of  more  import  than  great  tragic  records, 
and  I  thought  of  this,  but  to  no  purpose.  One  can  never 
solve  the  riddle,  really.  It  twists  and  turns,  heaves  and 
changes  color,  like  a  cauldron  that  glows  and  bubbles 
but  is  never  still. 

And  then  we  settled  ourselves  once  more  for  the  last 
run  of  thirtyfive  miles  to  Indianapolis.  It  was  after 
nine,  and  by  eleven,  anyhow,  if  not  before,  barring  acci 
dents,  we  should  be  there.  The  country  north  of  here, 
so  far  as  I  could  see,  retained  none  of  the  interesting 
variations  of  the  land  to  the  south.  It  was  all  level  and 
the  roads,  if  one  could  judge  by  the  feel,  as  smooth  as 
a  table.  There  were  no  towns,  apparently,  on  this  par 
ticular  road,  and  not  many  houses,  but  we  encountered 
market  wagon  after  market  wagon,  heavily  loaded  with 
country  produce,  a  single  light  swinging  between  their 


508  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

wheels,  all  making  their  way  north  to  the  young,  color 
less  city  of  three  hundred  thousand  or  more. 

And  when  we  were  still  within  ten  miles  of  it  occurred 
the  second  of  these  psychic  accidents  which  always  come 
in  twos  for  me.  South  of  Bedford  we  had  killed  a  hen. 
In  the  glow  of  our  lamp,  perhaps  a  hundrexl  yards  away, 
there  suddenly  appeared  out  of  the  dark  a  brown  pig, 
young  but  quite  as  large  as  a  dog,  which  at  sight  of  the 
lights  seemed  to  make  straight  for  us.  It  was  squealing 
plaintively,  as  though  seeking  human  care,  and  yet  we 
bore  down  on  it,  quite  unable,  as  Bert  explained  after 
ward,  to  turn  quickly  enough  to  save  it. 

There  was  a  smash,  a  grunt,  and  then  silence.  We 
were  speeding  along  quite  as  swiftly  as  before. 

"I  tried  to  turn/'  Bert  called  back,  "but  the  darn  little 
fool  made  straight  for  us.  They  always  do  for  some 


reason." 


"Yes,  it's  odd  about  pigs  that  way,"  commented 
Franklin. 

"Number  two,"  I  said  to  myself. 

And  in  a  mile  or  two  more  the  lights  of  Indianapolis 
began  to  appear.  It  had  clouded  up,  as  I  have  said,  as 
we  neared  Martinsville,  and  now  the  heavens  reflected 
the  glow  of  the  city  below.  We  passed  those  remote 
houses  which  people  seeking  to  make  a  little  money  out 
of  their  real  estate,  or  to  live  where  rents  are  low,  build 
and  occupy.  I  thought  of  the  walled  cities  of  the  middle 
ages,  when  people  crowded  together  as  compactly  as 
possible,  in  order  to  gain  the  feeling  of  comfort  and 
security.  In  these  days  we  are  so  safe  that  the  loneliest 
cabin  in  the  mountains  fears  no  unfriendly  intruder. 

In  a  few  moments  more  we  were  trundling  up  a  rough 
street,  avoiding  street  cars,  crossing  railroad  and  car 
tracks  and  soon  stopping  at  the  main  entrance  of  one  of 
those  skyscraper  hotels  which  every  American  town  of 
any  size  must  now  boast  or  forever  hang  its  head  in 
shame.  Anything  under  nine  stories  is  a  failure — a  sore 
shame. 


THE  END  OF  THE  JOURNEY          509 

"We'll  have  a  bite  of  something  before  we  run  out  to 
Carmel,  won't  we?"  commented  Franklin. 

"Let's  end  this  historic  pilgrimage  with  a  drink,"  I 
suggested.  "Only  mine  shall  be  so  humble  a  thing  as  a 
Scotch  and  soda." 

"Well,  I  think  I'll  have  some  tea !"  said  Franklin. 

So  in  we  went. 

I  was  not  at  all  tired,  but  the  wind  had  made  me 
sleepy.  It  had  been  a  pleasant  day,  like  all  these  days — 
save  for  the  evoked  spirits  of  dead  things.  We  drank 
and  smiled  and  paid  and  then  sped  out  of  Indianapolis's 
best  street,  north,  and  on  to  Carmel.  We  were  within 
a  mile  and  a  half  of  Franklin's  home  when  we  had  our 
last  blowout  in  the  front  right  wheel — the  two  rear  ones 
carried  new  tires. 

"I  knew  it!"  exclaimed  Bert  crustily,  reaching  for  his 
crutches  and  getting  himself  out.  "I  knew  we'd  never 
get  back  without  one.  I  was  just  wondering  where  it  was 
going  to  happen." 

"That's  funny,  Bert!"  exclaimed  Franklin.  "The  last 
time  we  came  north  from  Indianapolis,  do  you  remember, 
we  broke  down  right  here." 

"I  remember  all  right,"  said  Bert,  getting  out  the 
tools  and  starting  to  loosen  the  tire  clamps.  "You'd 
better  get  out  your  note  book,  Mr.  Dreiser,  and  make 
a  note  of  this;  the  trip's  not  done  yet." 

Bert  had  seen  me  draw  my  deadly  pencil  and  paper 
so  often  that  he  could  not  resist  that  one  comment. 

"I'll  try  and  remember  this,  Bert,  without  notes,  if 
you'll  just  get  the  wheel  on,"  I  commented  wearily. 

"This  is  what  comes  of  thinking  evil,"  called  Franklin 
jocosely.  "If  Bert  hadn't  been  thinking  that  we  ought 
to  have  a  breakdown  here,  we  wouldn't  have  had  one. 
The  puncture  was  really  in  his  psychic  unity." 

"What's  that?"  asked  Bert,  looking  up. 

"Well,  it's  something  connected  with  the  gizzard,"  I 
was  about  to  say,  but  instead  I  observed:  "It's  your  spir 
itual  consciousness  of  well  being,  Bert.  You're  all 


510  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

right  only  you  don't  know  it.  You  want  to  get  so  that 
you  always  know  it." 

"Uh  huh !"  he  grunted  heavily.    "I  see." 

But  I  don't  think  he  did. 

Then  we  climbed  in,  and  in  about  two  more  minutes 
we  were  carrying  our  bags  up  Franklin's  front  steps  and 
dismissing  the  car  for  the  night.  Mrs.  Booth  came  out 
and  welcomed  us. 

"We  thought  you  were  going  to  get  back  last  night. 
What  delayed  you?" 

"Oh,  we  just  took  a  little  longer,"  laughed  Franklin. 

There  were  letters  and  a  telegram,  and  instead  of  my 
being  able  to  stay  a  few  days,  as  I  had  hoped,  it  seemed 
necessary  that  I  should  go  the  next  day.  My  train  left 
at  two,  and  to  get  various  things  left  at  Indianapolis  on 
my  way  south,  I  would  have  to  leave  a  little  before  one. 
Speed  appeared  the  next  morning  to  say  he  would  like 
to  accompany  me  as  far  as  Indianapolis.  Bert  came  to 
say  goodby  early.  He  was  off  to  join  a  high  school  pic 
nic,  composed  exclusively  of  ex-classmates  of  a  certain 
high  school  year.  I  was  beginning  to  think  I  should  see 
no  more  of  my  charming  friend  of  a  few  days  before, 
when, — but  that 

On  my  long,  meditative  ride  back  to  New  York,  I  had 
time  to  think  over  the  details  of  my  trip  and  the  nature 
of  our  land  and  the  things  I  had  seen  and  what  I  really 
thought  of  them.  I  concluded  that  my  native  state  and 
my  country  are  as  yet  children,  politically  and  socially — 
a  child  state  and  a  child  country.  They  have  all  the 
health,  wealth,  strength,  enthusiasm  for  life  that  is  nec 
essary,  but  their  problems  are  all  before  them.  We  are 
indeed  a  free  people,  in  part,  bound  only  by  our  illusions, 
but  we  are  a  heavily  though  sweetly  illusioned  people 
nevertheless.  A  little  over  a  hundred  years  ago  we  began 
with  great  dreams,  most  wondrous  dreams,  really — im 
possible  ideals,  and  we  are  still  dreaming  them. 

"Man,"  says  our  national  constitution,   "is  endowed 


THE  END  OF  THE  JOURNEY          511 

by  his  creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights."  But  is 
he?  Are  we  born  free?  Equal?  I  cannot  see  it.  Some 
of  us  may  achieve  freedom,  equality — but  that  is  not  a 
right,  certainly  not  an  inalienable  right.  It  is  a  stroke, 
almost,  of  unparalleled  fortune.  But  it  is  such  a  beau 
tiful  dream. 

As  for  the  American  people,  at  least  that  limited  sec 
tion  of  it  that  lies  between  New  York  and  Indiana,  the 
lakes  and  the  Ohio  River — what  of  them?  Sometimes  I 
think  of  America  as  a  country  already  composed  of  or 
divided  into  distinct  types  or  nationalities,  which  may 
merge  or  not  as  time  goes  on; — or  they  may  be  diverg 
ing  phases  of  American  life,  destined  to  grow  sharper 
and  clearer — New  England,  the  South,  the  Far  West,  the 
Middle  West.  Really,  this  region  between  New  York 
and  Indiana — New  York  and  the  Mississippi  really — 
may  be  looked  upon  as  a  distinct  section.  It  has  little 
in  common  with  New  England,  the  South,  or  the  Far 
West,  temperamentally.  It  is  a  healthy,  happy  land  in 
which  Americans  accept  their  pale  religions  and  their 
politics  and  their  financial  and  social  fortunes  with  an 
easy  grace.  Here  flourishes  the  harmless  secret  order; 
the  church  and  the  moving  picture  entertain  where  they 
do  not  "save";  the  newspapers  browbeat,  lie,  threaten, 
cajole;  the  plethoric  trusts  tax  them  of  their  last  cent 
by  high  prices,  rents,  fares  and  interest  on  mortgages, — 
and  yet  they  rarely,  if  ever,  complain.  It  is  still  a  new 
land — a  rich  one.  Are  they  not  free  and  equal?  Does 
not  the  sacred  American  constitution,  long  since  buried 
under  a  mass  of  decisions,  say  so?  And  have  they  not 
free  speech  to  say  what  the  newspapers,  controlled  by 
the  trusts,  will  permit  them  to  say?  Happy,  happy 
people ! 

Yet  for  the  dream's  sake,  as  I  told  myself  at  this  time, 
and  as  against  an  illimitable  background  of  natural  chance 
and  craft,  I  would  like  to  see  this  and  the  other  sections 
with  which  it  is  so  closely  allied,  this  vast  republic,  live 
on.  It  is  so  splendid,  so  tireless.  Its  people,  in  spite 
of  their  defects  and  limitations,  sing  so  at  their  tasks. 


512  A  HOOSIER  HOLIDAY 

There  are  dark  places,  but  there  are  splendid  points  of 
light,  too.  One  is  their  innocence,  complete  and  endur 
ing;  another  is  their  faith  in  ideals  and  the  Republic. 
A  third  is  their  optimism  or  buoyancy  of  soul,  their  cour 
age  to  get  up  in  the  morning  and  go  up  and  down  the 
world,  whistling  and  singing.  Oh,  the  whistling,  singing 
American,  with  his  jest  and  his  sound  heart  and  that 
light  of  humorous  apprehension  in  his  eye !  How  won 
derful  it  all  is !  It  isn't  English,  or  French,  or  German, 
or  Spanish,  or  Russian,  or  Swedish,  or  Greek.  It's  Amer 
ican,  "Good  Old  United  States," — and  for  that  reason  I 
liked  this  region  and  all  these  other  portions  of  America 
that  I  have  ever  seen.  New  England  isn't  so  kindly, 
the  South  not  so  hopeful,  the  Far  West  more  so,  but  they 
all  have  something  of  these  characteristics  which  I  have 
been  describing. 

And  for  these  reasons  I  would  have  this  tremendous, 
bubbling  Republic  live  on,  as  a  protest  perhaps  against 
the  apparently  too  unbreakable  rule  that  democracy, 
equality,  or  the  illusion  of  it,  is  destined  to  end  in  dis 
aster.  It  cannot  survive  ultimately,  I  think.  In  the  vast, 
universal  sea  of  motion,  where  change  and  decay  are 
laws,  and  individual  power  is  almost  always  uppermost, 
it  must  go  under — but  until  then 

We  are  all  such  pathetic  victims  of  chance,  anyhow. 
We  are  born,  we  struggle,  we  plan,  and  chance  blows  all 
our  dreams  away.  If,  therefore,  one  country,  one  state 
dares  to  dream  the  impossible,  why  cast  it  down  before 
its  ultimate  hour?  Why  not  dream  with  it?  It  is  so 
gloriously,  so  truly  a  poetic  land.  We  were  conceived 
in  ecstasy  and  born  in  dreams. 

And  so,  were  I  one  of  sufficient  import  to  be  able  to 
speak  to  my  native  land,  the  galaxy  of  states  of  which 
it  is  composed,  I  would  say:  Dream  on.  Believe.  Per 
haps  it  is  unwise,  foolish,  childlike,  but  dream  anyhow. 
Disillusionment  is  destined  to  appear.  You  may  vanish 
as  have  other  great  dreams,  but  even  so,  what  a  glori 
ous,  an  imperishable  memory! 

uOnce,"  will  say  those  historians  of  far  distant  nations 


THE  END  OF  THE  JOURNEY          513 

of  times  yet  unborn,  perchance,  "once  there  was  a  great 
republic.  And  its  domain  lay  between  a  sea  and  sea — 
a  great  continent.  In  its  youth  and  strength  it  dared 
assert  that  all  men  were  free  and  equal,  endowed  with 
certain  inalienable  rights.  Then  came  the  black  storms 
of  life — individual  passions  and  envies,  treasons,  strata 
gems,  spoils.  The  very  gods,  seeing  it  young,  dreamful, 
of  great  cheer,  were  filled  with  envy.  They  smote  and 
it  fell.  But,  oh,  the  wondrous  memory  of  it!  For  in 
those  days  men  were  free,  because  they  Imagined  they 

were  free " 

Of  dreams  and  the  memory  of  them  is  life  compounded. 


THE  END 


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